The Anime Thread

[Monoriu]

I played a ridiculous amount of Nobunaga's Ambition. 

Same here.  I played every game except the very first one. 

[Monoriu]

Shakugan no Shana, literally Shana of the Burning Eyes.  *The* show that popularised the short, flat-chested, violent, sugar-and-ice personality, socially awkward type of female lead who treats her love interest like dirt but also falls for him and cannot spit it out.  Also permanently established (or pigeon-holed) seiyuu Rie Kugimiya's status as tsundere queen (tsun means proud or hostile, dere means lovely).  She will go on to voice a ton of Shana-clones in other shows. 

It took me awhile to get the basic concepts of the world.  There exists another dimension called the crimson world, and there resides crimson denizens and lords.  The denizens consume "the power of existance" of real world humans.  Once consumed, the humans temporarily become "torches", who will disappear after a short while.  When they disappear, their entire existance will be erased, i.e. families will forget them, appearance on photographs will be gone etc.  Many crimson lords however think this is harmful and unsets the balance of the universe.  So these lords form personal bonds with selected humans, who become "flame hazes" that battle the denizens in a never-ending struggle.  Shana is a flame haze.  The story begins when she meets the male lead and informs him that he has already been turned into a torch.   

It is a decent anime show, with ups and downs.  The setting is unique and the concepts are interesting but can be difficult for a newcomer.  The author seems to have trouble deciding whether this is a somewhat dark science fiction fight series or a light-hearted school drama with a love triangle, and tried to do both with mixed results.  My take is that he did very well with the former but a mediocre job with the latter. 

This is a moderately long series, with 3 seasons, a total of 72 TV episodes, 5 OVAs and 1 movie.  Season 1 is decent, season 2 is boring due to too much filler and a focus on the love triangle.  Season 3 ditched the school drama, returned to form and is the best season.  The movie is an alternative (and probably better) version of the first third of season 1. 

[Josquius]

Attack on Titan is the best thing ever.
I really liked it despite normally not liking wanna-be-serious shonen stuff.
Though it does heavily eat into a story I was wanting to write and now if I ever do so it would seem to be a rip off except with ironclads instead of grappling hooks.
But I've seen every episode. AGGGGGHHHH!
Thank god at least with this one, unlike other inconclusivly ending anime series I've liked in the past, there looks set to be a sequel.

[Monoriu]

Attack on Titan is probably the only series that I am 100% certain will have an anime sequel, due to its sheer popularity and the fact that the manga has already gone a lot further than the anime. 

I am not even sure if Madoka Magica will have a sequel or not.  It is an anime original series, so there is no source material to rely on.  Gen Urobuchi, the script writer, appears not to have any further ideas or interest in doing more Madoka.  They'll have to bring in other writers.  On the other hand the latest movie does leave a pretty big opening for a sequel.  The biggest assurance I have heard is that Madoka is a $40 billion yen industry. 

[Monoriu]

Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet.  I have yet to see a description of this anime that does not feature prominently a sentence mentioning Gen Urobuchi as the script writer.  He is the writer behind block busters Fate/Zero and Madoka Magica. 

In the distant future, mankind has left the Earth and now lives in space colonies.  They live in a militaristic society where children are trained to become soldiers from the day they are born, and those who are deemed unfit are discarded, because humanity are engaged in a never-ending war with an alien squid-like lifeform.  The story begins when humanity launches an all-out attack on the aliens and are repulsed.  Redo, the protagonist, escapes through a wormhole and ends up on Earth (the verdurous planet).  He finds a planet that is entirely covered by an ocean, and the remaining humans, with 20th/21st century technology, lives in floating, moving cities formed by locking many ships together.  Gargantia is the city that picks him up.  There, he must gain the trust of the Gargantia residents, adjust to civilian life, and find a new purpose in life. 

By Urobuchi/Urobucher standards, this is light-hearted.  It is probably his most humane work that I've seen.  His trademark plot twists, character deaths and disturbing scenes are all here, but they are no where near as dark as Fate/Zero or Madoka Magica.  The first half is pretty fun and optimistic, and the story only gets serious in the second half.  It is an enjoyable flick and a coming of age story.  13 episodes and 2 OVAs.  A lot of OVAs are fanservicy crap, but these OVAs are especially good that won't feel out of place even if they are aired with the others. 

Second season has already been announced, though no details are available.  No idea how they are going to do it though, because season 1 does wrap things up nicely with all the outstanding major plot elements resolved. 

[Savonarola]

In the distant future, mankind has left the Earth and now lives in space colonies.  They live in a militaristic society where children are trained to become soldiers from the day they are born, and those who are deemed unfit are discarded, because humanity are engaged in a never-ending war with an alien squid-like lifeform.

[Agelastus]

In the distant future, mankind has left the Earth and now lives in space colonies.  They live in a militaristic society where children are trained to become soldiers from the day they are born, and those who are deemed unfit are discarded, because humanity are engaged in a never-ending war with an alien squid-like lifeform.

In many ways the setting is grimmer than that, although in general, as Monoriu said, the story isn't. I'll second Mono's recommendation, although with the caveat that its better not to think about some of the unlikely coincidences of the story based on what we know of the background of this world.

[Monoriu]

In many ways the setting is grimmer than that, although in general, as Monoriu said, the story isn't. I'll second Mono's recommendation, although with the caveat that its better not to think about some of the unlikely coincidences of the story based on what we know of the background of this world.

Do elaborate.  I am not aware of these...coincidences.  What are they

[Agelastus]

In many ways the setting is grimmer than that, although in general, as Monoriu said, the story isn't. I'll second Mono's recommendation, although with the caveat that its better not to think about some of the unlikely coincidences of the story based on what we know of the background of this world.

Do elaborate.  I am not aware of these...coincidences.  What are they

As an example, the evolver base where one of the character's elder brother died.

Gargantia supposedly travels the oceans of the world drifting wherever the "currents" take it; yet after all those years the evolver base is within a few days travel at most of where Gargantia is during the storyline.

That's one hell of a coincidence. There's others.

Then there's the "oddities"; such as the captain-designate of Gargantia having a map on her wall showing the Earth as it would be if the magnetic poles had reversed (south is at the top) and if most of the world had flooded apart from some mountain areas (specifically, the Tibetan plateau/Himalayas is visible in the right place; as is parts of the Andes and Rockies) yet all dialogue in the show says there's no land left at all. Certainly no-one on the Gargantia has ever seen it.

Or how the breakaway fleet travelled to the evolvers base given the power source of the ships - does the base sit on a permanent "current"? Or is this another of the coincidences, a "current" conveniently forming? Or were they so fanatical that they were willing to commit suicide if there was no way to recharge their batteries at the evolver base - something not born out by their general attitude?

Since the breakaway fleet must have travelled in a different direction to Gargantia (or else there'd be no point in the breakaway) how come Gargantia's people were so relieved earlier in the series to see a new current forming ahead of them if it was so easy for the breakaway group to reach the evolvers base?*

There's quite a few bits that don't bear close scrutiny.

*On reflection, and considering it now, I suppose the new current might have gone to the evolvers base in one direction and elsewhere in the other - a "T-junction" rather than an extension of the current they were on.

But then we get back to the coincidence level of having the evolver base so close to them since we're now adding to it by having a "current" open up at exactly the right time.

[Lettow77]

A sort of high-minded Fantasy/ Science Fiction blend, Gankutsuou is a very loose retelling of the Count of Monte Cristo. Contains space vampires.

The Count of Monte Cristo is more suited than it seems at first glance to being turned into a Galactic Drama; a free hand with the original work and truly innovative (reminiscent only perhaps of some scenes in Michiko and Hatchin) artwork give it the distinct feel of its own story, despite being steeped in the grandeur of Dumas's original work.



For mono, i'll mention that high-society Japanese is a nice fit for the nobility-flecked cast of Monte Cristo, and that was a particular joy for me to listen to. The Count's every word is delightful.

[Savonarola]

Gankutsuou in it's early chapters follows the Count of Monte Cristo so closely that I was wondering how they were going to handle Eugénie and her piano teacher.  (They changed her relationship with Albert substantially as the story progressed.)

I thought Gankutsuou had it's drawbacks; by eliminating the first hundred pages of The Count of Monte Cristo they removed the best part of the book.  By focusing on the younger generation rather than the count the story turned into a soap opera (with Edmond Dantès as his own evil twin.)  Still it was an interesting experiment with fascinating animation.

[Monoriu]

This art style reminds of the witch barriers of Madoka Magica. 

[Monoriu]

One Piece.  This is huge.  It is *the* best selling manga in history, not one of the best.  Annual sales of One Piece manga is several multiples of the no.2 one.  It is almost impossible to go to Japan and not bump into One Piece merchandise at some point.  The anime has been going on for 15 years, non-stop.  There are 635 episodes, 3 OVAs, 7-8 TV specials, and 12 movies.  Yes, I've watched everything.

One Piece is a shonen show with a pirate setting.  The author makes no secret that he is a huge Dragonball fan, and the similarity shows.  It is about fights, adventure, friendship, and above all, dreams.  The former Pirate King had been publicly executed.  Just before his death, he urged everybody to look for his treasure.  This triggered the great piracy era.  The progatonist, Luffy, is determined to assemble a crew to find the treasure, known as One Piece.  He believes that it is located at the end of the Grand Line, one of the world's oceans.  By finding the treasure and reaching the end of the world, he would become the new pirate king.  His ship and crew travel from island to island, meeting new friends and fighting enemies everywhere.  Luffy doesn't engage in piracy in the traditional sense.  A pirate to him means someone who is free to do whatever he wants, up to and including fighting the government if necessary. 

This is epic in scale.  The author never stops coming up with new ideas and characters after so many years.  The only thing that is missing from the show is romance.  Otherwise, it has it all.  Fights, comedy, serious moments, emotional scenes, nightmarish shots, many of them memorable ones.  It takes a story arc approach, with one island usually serving as one big story arc.  There are really good arcs and mediocre arc out of the 635 episodes.  One common piece of advice for newcomers is to stay until you reach the Arlong arc (ep. 31-45).

Compared to Naruto, another popular shonen show, One Piece doesn't have too many filler episodes.  They avoid this by dragging the story out.  The rule of thumb is that each anime episode should consist of two manga chapters (they usually publish one manga chapter and broadcast one episode per week).  So the problem of catching up to the manga is easy to see.  One Piece avoids the problem by only adapting one manga chapter per episode.  So the pace is very slow, especially in recent years when they largely stopped making fillers.

To really enjoy One Piece, one must start from episode 1 and complete the whole thing.  But if you have to pick an arc to watch, in my opinion, the best arcs are -

Arlong (ep. 31-45)
Alabasta (ep. 62-135)
Water 7 (ep. 229-312)
Summit war (ep. 385-489)

The movies is a horrible place to start watching One Piece.  The majority of them are non-canon. 

[Lettow77]

The opportunity cost of watching One Piece is enormous. With that much time invested into anime, you could easily watch thirty shows of a more average length. I can't imagine some shonen show aiming to pander to the widest possible audience is worth that much time.

 

[Monoriu]

The opportunity cost of watching One Piece is enormous. With that much time invested into anime, you could easily watch thirty shows of a more average length. I can't imagine some shonen show aiming to pander to the widest possible audience is worth that much time.

To a certain extent that is true.  But One Piece is really quite good.  Not Madoka, Angel Beats or Fate Zero level good, but still better than like 80% of the shows out there.  Those 600 episodes just went by like a breeze.  There aren't enough average length shows that are as good.