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NY Times on Anime
An anonymous reader submitted a NY Times story (you know what that means: annoying free registration required) about anime as Japanese Film's 2nd Golden Age. It covers a lot of ground, as
well as a lot of really amazing films including (obviously) Miyazaki's
work, but also stuff like Ranma 1/2, Perfect Blue, Cowboy Bebop and Evangelion to pick a handful of my favorites. In short, it's a good piece with its share of criticisms and commentary, but it's cool to see a mainstream source talk up something that was so much subculture just a few years
ago.
Whenever you try and get an article from the NYT and are presented with that pesky registration screen, just replace the "www" in the URL window at the top of your browser with "archives" and hit return. Works every time.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
http://antiani.tripod.com/
forma3
..it's cool to see a mainstream source talk up something that was so much subculture just a few years ago.
Is it? I hate to be elitist or something, no wait, I do like to be elitist. Why can't the mainstream get its own subculture? It seems to me that OFTEN when a subculture goes mainstream it becomes BORING..
Ah well, the Counter Culture always seems to become the Over-the-counter Culture.
Starsucks
...but there is an anime showing today here in Vancouver BC, Canada at the main Douglas College campus (a block away from New Westminster Skytrain) at 2:00 pm. Admission is $3 and the following are playing:
1. Neia Under 7 #1, 2
2. Inu-yasha #1,2
3. Big-O #1,2
4. Hand Maid May #1,2,3
break (30 min)
5. Initial D #1,2,3
6. G-Savior
/end of off-topic.
A while back Roger Ebert did an article on various anime and it seems that he actually likes it after all (considering he seems a bit hard to please from my view-point). As well, an article in my local paper depicted that "Astro-boy," our atomic little friend from the 60s, is returning to DVD.
Where Western animators struggle to create a convincing illusion of life, Japanese animators are more interested in capturing single expressive gestures, or in evoking a particular mood through the careful use of color.
I think this is the real difference between anime and western animation. While disney spends millions of dollars on computer animation, going for the "almost lifelike" feeling, anime such as "Graveyard of the Fireflies" spends far more time conveying the overall feeling of sadness (and no annoying musical numbers either).
I think that anime in general can be far more emotional than western animation will ever be.
Unless you consider only "quality" anime. In fact, japanese animated series such as Pokemon and Digimon and Dragonball have been #1, at least in Spain, for a very long time. IN fact, that has brought over many manga, which have almost completely eliminated more classical comics, such as the ones published by DC and Marvel. Maybe many comics in fact deserved to be eliminated, but not all...
In fact, "quality" anime are only available for die-hard otakus here. Mangas, however, have no distribution problems.
It's just a BloJJ
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nyt/20020120/en/ani me_japanese_cinema_s_second_golden_age_1.html
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Also in this morning's Times, an article about how "Cardcaptor Sakura" was changed to "Cardcaptors" for the American audience. Interesting article, it reads like it was written by an otaku,
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
The submission I made was of course misleading, (I put something down like it was the end of anime or something to get your attention) and it appears you read the article, summarized the salient points, and provided an accurate title to the article. Go ./!!!
the stuff that i get on my cable tv are mostly very poor. No plots, bad animation, no caracthers they translate it very poorly. Can you give me some hints about really good movies i could get on dvd?
I'm a long time fan of the European "bande dessinee", cartoons, and they are very hard to see on the states or even found anyone to talk about it.
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
I'm getting a little sick of people complaining every time an anime topic appears that this isn't "news for nerds". I mean, have you BEEN to an anime con? Have you SEEN the hardcore anime fans? About as nerdy as you can get! ;)
(It's all jokes, people.)
Seriously though, a large number of geeks are also interested in anime -- this is certainly true at UAlberta, I've found, where it seems every other comp.sci. is either a closet or a not-so-closet anime.. fan.
So whether YOU like anime or not, remember that many other geeks do, and realize that there are just as many who don't particularly care about music, or linux, or any other of the topics we have on Slashdot (topics which are provided, I meant mention, to facilitate the filtering out of stories you aren't interested in).
Actually a pretty good article, but it reads like it has been sitting on the the shelf for ~18 months. Mentions Mononoke as Miyazaki's newest work (no mention of Sen to Chiro) and the comments on Astro Boy reflect that he must have recently seen the (semi) restored original pilot episode. Actually sounds like he was in the room at the Long Beach, CA film fest in ... late 1999?
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
I must agree with CmdrTaco that it's great to see Japanese Anime get some major press. However, it's going to take more than that to get people to understand what's so great about Anime. It's going to take all of us to continue sharing the art with our friends, and for studios to put up more money/risk to promote it.
Roger Ebert can talk all day about how Miyazaki has awesome films and give 2 thumbs up to "Princess Mononoke," but if Disney/Miramax think that a "blockbuster opening weekend" can be realized from opening "Mononoke" in 8 theatres US-wide, they are highly mistaken. (as you can imagine, it only made $144k in its opening week) At its height, "Mononoke" was showing in 129 screens -- a far cry from the 3000+ screens that a major movie like "Harry Potter." While "Mononoke" made over 100 million in Japan, its final US gross was under 3 million (both US dollars)
What went wrong? Well, first off, the art of Anime is definitely not as well accepted or understood in the U.S. due to historical differences in culture. In Japan, mature themes of politics, war, and tales of the human experience are spoken and told of through comics and anime. In the U.S., "animated feature" = "Bambi" Hrm...
If the studios who push Japanese Anime want to make it worth their time/money, they're going to have an uphill battle, as they're going to have to convince everyone in the US to go see the film on opening night, and promote the hell out of the film... (eg, money) Ultimately, they have to try to change the culture of a nation, and it's probably not going to happen overnight.
Solution? Keep making money off of $30 DVD's with 4 episodes of "Cowboy Bebop" and "Evangelion" -- one day, the sales will reach a high enough point that statistically -- it'll be worth bringing to the theatres... Until then... the safest thing is to keep selling those pricey DVD's... And... keep sharing them with your friends who have no idea what anime is...
I guess it's not cool anymore.
Cowboy bebop, evangelion, Ghost in The shell, Princess Monoke, FuriKuri (a.k.a FLCL), Serial Experiments Lain
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
Although purists cast disdain upon the 'disposable' series *Sailor Moon*, I am nevertheless a fan and found it actually quite fascinating to see how the show had been edited to be suitable for the Western teenybopper demographic.
There's a lot of latent sexual subtext (homoerotic or otherwise) which is glossed over in the NA dubbing. For example one of the villains, Zoesite (sic), who is actually an effeminate male in the Japanese version, is presented (and dubbed correspondingly) as a female, in the NA dubbing. Similarly, when in civilian clothes, Sailor Uranus seems to be an effeminate man in love with Sailor Neptune. In costume she's female. The ambiguity isn't really dealt with.
As well, there are occasional violent scenes which are cut out or slightly abbreviated. Presumably this is not judged suitable for the desired NA demographic.
But you can still catch the odd scene or bit of dialog that's left in where you say to yourself, "what?!" That is, the sexuality of the characters is somewhat ambiguous.
While I'm on the topic of ambiguous sexuality in anime, this site has some brief overviews of homosexuality and transgenderism (don't know if that's a word, but you know what I mean) in anime.
It seems like everytime a "mainstream" source picks up on something that was a "sub-culture", all that anyone who enjoyed the subject of the "sub-culture" has to look forward to is the dumbing down and commercialization of what they previously enjoyed.
if i could speak out on the constant repetition and yimmer-yammering on the need for free registration at the ny times site:
/. didn't warn me about this!" i vote to drop the warning.
first, it is stated here so often that all but the most infrequent users must be, as i am, sick to death of hearing that the nyt requires free registration. we are grown-ups and can handle it if our browser directs us to something that we might have to give a fake email address to. "dammit, those bastards at
second, if the free registration bothers everyone so much that it must be stated, why is it that so many stories here are referenced from there? i mean, the stories come from us. does this not imply that the nyt is a valuable tool? so why do we complain about the free reg if so many of us use it?
third, why can't we get around the idea that the new york times isn't going to just give away its hard work for nothing? the feeling that i get when i read that free registration is required is that it shouldn't be, that it should all be free free free. i, for one, can handle a meaningless free registration for the excellent content they provide. it is not as if they come knocking on my door when i hit the submit button.
drop the free registration warning!
my peace.
I think anime has finally become mainstream because we are getting a deluge of releases here in the USA that are either officially licensed (CPM, ADV Films, AnimEigo) or brought over by the production company themselves (Bandai).
Because of these official releases, we're getting most importantly uncut anime, which reveals some truly astonishing storytelling, to say the least. Who would have thought that Saber Marionette J would be way better than anyone anticipated? Or the groundbreaking Neon Genesis Evangelion? Or be beautifully-animated The Vision of Escaflowne? Or the much-liked Gundam Wing? Or the serio-comic adventures of the three Slayers series?
Even Sailor Moon can be surprisingly good storytelling if you can get the uncut versions. We're very fortunate that Pioneer is bringing over the third season (Sailor Moon S(uper)), perhaps the best season of the series with very top-notch storytelling.
In short, Americans are discovering why anime can be quite good--they use superior storytelling to compensate for somewhat subpar animation.
Thanks. And those are more SF, Violence, what' Can you describe it?
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
I was reading along the article whne I come upon the words "...released "The Spirits Within," an elaborate computer- animated episode of the long-running "Final Fantasy" series..."
Now while the much older animated final fantasy "movie," final fantasy legends, might have actually been considered an anime for it's plot and graphics, I, as an anime fanatic, have troubles picturing this great technologically advanced picture as true anime. It seems that anything that comes out of japan that's animated immediatly gets but down as anime. However I believe that the concentration on plot and characters as opposed to the true "animation" part of anime is where anime gets it's tremendous backing and I think it's a shame that FF: The Spirits Within, has been catagoriezed in that genre...
I've been waiting and waiting for large amounts of anime to hit DVD...
If all the Ramna seasons came out on DVD I'd pick them up...
Maybe just so they can get the email addresses of people who are too stupid to give them a fake one, and sell their email to spammers? What the heck else can free registration accomplish?
Just remember: Whenever any registration asks for personal info, just lie for the sake of screwing up the bastards' database. Like the mp3 by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie. here Oh, dammit, there's free registration required. Just tell them your name is Homer Simpson and your email is nospam@FuckSpammers.com
Repeal the DMCA!
let's see
Cowboy bebop: Reminds me alot of the Han Solo side of star wars, you know, space ships, bounty hunters
Ghost In the shell: I would call this "The matrix of anime"
Evangelion: Sci-Fi, very good, giant robots and stuff
Serial Experiments Lain: more psychological thriller, i haven't seen much ov it
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
Dammit...The dude left out Lain...what was he thinking...It is The Matrix on crack!
forget it.
Personally I don't see any purpose for mainstreaming of anime in our half of the world -- only dangers. The only possible reason I could cite would be for increased availability (which I'd say with official and, ahem, unofficial channels is quite sufficient at this moment) or increased quality. I see no reason to believe increased American involvement or notice will significantly raise the quality of Japanese product, only lower it as it is catered to our perceived tastes. The Japanese already had the largest animation industry in the world before this most recent 'anime going mainstream' prediction (anybody else here remember the talk that anime would go mainstream after Macross : DYRL and Nausicaa?) The only remaining reason that I can think of would be the psychological factors, the "hey, my hobby's cool/ahead of its time rather than fanboyish so now you can understand me" factor. I don't care if it's 'understood' or whatever here in the states, only that the Japanese keep doing what they've been doing.
Seeing as how GITS came out before Matrix I'd find that really hard to believe, I am greatly dissapointed that the maxtrix did not give any credit to GITS, you can even see the STARTLING similarities between them:
The opening credits of GITS has the greenish font and scrolling letters....
The first sceen, well kinda, is the exact same as the "birth" sceen in the matrix
Plugging into the computer... all of that... don't get me started
(In a way, SB is almost a derivative of a derivative, since Lucas borrowed some ideas from Akiro Kurosawa movies, but that's another message thread...)
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
Don't forget the classic Ninja Scroll. It has a very good blend of Japanese artistry and plot. More importantly though, it's a posterboy for the classical eastern Taoist viewpoint.
Where did you hear this? There's nothing on the AP about it. Or Yahoo. Or Reuters. Verify rumours before passing them on.
*Insert clever witticism here.*
I've never thought of lying on those free registrations before - good thing you gave me a clue about how to "beat" them. I always use my real name, home address, etc. Thanks.
It would have been nice for the artice to mention how much censorship anime is subject to in the US, but otherwise it was very good.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
I am not a huge anime fan. I've seen Akira, Ghost in the Shell, but thats about it. Over the past couple years I've been getting into it more because, in the bay area, KTEH pbs channel 54 (broadcast, dunno for cable) shows pretty good anime on Sunday nights at 9 or 9:30pm. All unedited, they've shown Evangelion, some Dirty Pair series and another one I can't remember.
Anyways, if you are in the Bay Area and want to get into Anime this is a pretty cool place to start.
-Sean
Are any of the Anime shows dubbed in English without altering the dialog and content? I would rather listen to the English voices on Cowboy Bebop (Cartoon Network), but get the dialog and action of the unedited episodes. This might be my own American bias, but the Japanese voices don't sound as distinctive as the American voices.
"I see. The fact that you . . . can't explain . . . explains everything."
The piece was interesting, not for it's insights in to anime (it had none for an anime fan), but for it's insights in to the author's own cultural biases. For instance, the author claims that the main character in Ghost in the Shell questions whether she is "man, woman or even human." The major never questioned her gender, only her status as human. Basically, I'm saying that you shouldn't put too much stock in this article (other than the overall message that anime can be good, too), because the author was heavily influenced by his/her biases.
I've always aid that great art is great not because a person can read it, but because it can read a person. You can tell a lot about a person and his/her basic assumptions by how they interpret a work of art. It just goes to show that anime can be great art, too.
BlackGriffen
In conculsion, CmdrTaco has no idea what is mainstream and what is subculture. Then again, this is all coming from a guy who is used to mass market crap like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars.
The goatse guy for president. Win one for the gaper!
I'm not a fan of anime, but I've never thought it was a good thing for the Mainstream Press to pick up on *anytyhing* that is 'sub-culture'. Next thing we know there will be U.S. style anime with million dollar actors doing the voice-overs...
Originality will be lost...
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
These tips are worth their weight in gold! I can't believe no one's thought of this before! Way to go, Tuxinatorium...you've just saved me a lot of spam!
Sometimes I wonder why I even read Slashdot when I could just go to the NY Times site myself. Every 5th story on this site nothing but a link to there.
How much is Slashdot getting per link to the NYT site anyway?
The reason I watch anime in the first place is because it is different than the mainstream. The stories range from amazing to extremely strange and unbelieveable.
Once you "mainstream" Anime you loose those qualities that make it such a great artform. Just look at the pokemon phenomenon. You take one unique anime and then market it to death. Now all you have are clones of pokemon-like garbage, because that is only thing that can be funded. It kills the artform.
In the USA parent groups like censoring everything, so that will be a problem as well. Watching the Japanese version of Dragon Ball Z and the funimation/cartoon network version is like watching two different shows.
Will shows like Cowboy Bebop, BoogiePop phantom, Serial Experiments Lain be funded in the new world of mainstream Anime. I think not.
I'd rather it stay a subculture. So what if mainstream admires it, I hope they dont corrupt it like everything else.
-= Briareos =-
..Is that for every Evangelion, for every Kenshin, you've got a DBZ, or a Pokemon.
The average person who hasn't a clue about anime sees little kids carrying around their DBZ lunchboxes, their Pikachu dolls (Or even worse - adults sitting in cubicles frothing over animated breasts instead of pounding out code like they should be doing!), and, well, you can imagine the result.
Best option? Share high-quality anime with people you know. I had a rabidly anti-anime acquaintance a few months back. He kept whining about how it was all kids stuff.
Then I showed him X, non-dubbed.
His expression reminded one of Neo. "Woah."
..Anyway, I'm glad anime is slowly breaching its way into mainstream culture. It increases my probability of finding a wife who realizes the fact that Evangelion isn't a 'cartoon', yet doesn't have severe emotional problems.
I just don't get it. Why the fascination with Japanese pornography? I lived in Japan just after I graduated high school, between WWII and the start of the Korean War. I saw porno being peddled to the kids in this format. I know it's cleaned-up now, but calling clothed drawings art is a bit of a stretch.
Well, ignoring for the moment all the anime-culture discussion, all I have to say is that the new Rin Taro movie Metropolis looks quite tantalizing.
In their quest to (briefly) examine the cultural significance of anime, they completely failed to note the "cultural training" aspect of anime, perhaps culturally one of those most significant things that anime has to show us - As anthropologists, of course. Any anime otaku knows that the most significant thing it has to show us is shower scenes.
What I find most interesting about anime, on an intellectual level, is what children's shows especially (like Ranma 1/2) but really a great deal of anime has to say about Japanese cultural roles. While re-re-rewatching Ranma 1/2 OVA I could only laugh about the characters attempting to pigeonhole each other into their respective gender roles, especially in the case of Akane and her cooking. There is a great contrast between Akane's character actually in her element, where she is a strong fighter, and the kitchen, where they keep putting her. That's fine in the sense of comedic relief, but both she and the other characters (including her father) treat her as if she's useless simply because she can't cook.
It's also quite interesting (and also unexplored in the article) what's in kids' anime in Japan - Shower scenes, gratuitous breast shots, et cetera. While I agree that it's not such a big deal, it would be less questionable if the naked girls in question didn't universally posess pornstar figures. How many girls in Japan have a willow-thin body and DD-cup breasts? Especially at the age of 16 or so? Not too bloody many.
This is just a typical fluff piece by the NY times. It's good to see someone so mainstream doing a piece on the cultural significance of anime, but they're several years too late (This would have been timely three years ago when anime was just starting to gain massive cultural acceptance with the rapidly flowering social and economic maturity of the so-called "Generation X") and they aren't examining enough of the things which really make anime special. Someone in charge over at NYT basically just said "Give me a couple thousand words on the significance of Anime and we'll tuck it in here to make more slashdotters complain about required registration."
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yeah, man. They have all those shitty flat-shaded cells and the dialog doesn't make sense. Everyone knows the only one doing decent animation is Disney Animation Studios...
Oh wait, it's not 1982 anymore ;) I find the role reversal rather interesting, actually.
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
Pokemon doesn't really prove anime is actually mainstream, just that the general public has heard of "them japanimation thingies". I don't really think that counts. It is also worth noting that pokemon became popular because it fits America's general notion of animation. For anime to accually be mainstream it will have to escape both the American image of animation and the image of anime as hyperviolent porn. Not impossible, but pokemon and a few music videos can't do it alone.
My joke got modded as Insightful and my insight got modded as Funny.
I saw this cool show hosted by Samuel L Jackson the other day: "Art of Action: Martial Arts in the Movies". :)
One part had Ang Lee(Crouching Tiger) talking about how he would have never believed a few years ago that a chinese language martial arts film could be so popular in america and win an Oscar(the way he said Oscar was pretty incredulous/funny,
Americans have come a long way since the times of wanting Carradine over Bruce Lee
As Americans become less bigoted we will seee more and more foreign things gain popularity.
The world will be a bit nicer place as this happens too, since one of the primary complaints America-haters have is that our culture is swamping theirs.
printable press demo version available
also, in the same vein is robots.cnn
could someone explain me this NYTparser
whorl.da.ru
If that is the case, why did Disney feel it necessary to rip off from Kimba the White Lion?
Also ignored is the fact that Disney recycles the same "Princess" and "Prince" characters over and over again in their movies.
Just an observation.
This guy is going out of his way to say that if you watch anime, you'll end up like the Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons. Sure, there are those people
who have their whole life revolve around anime.
Then again, there are also hard core Disney fanatics out there who are the same way.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
see this article on anime.
Avatar: from your name, you suggest that you work for ADVision.
My question: what are you going to do with All-Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku?
Last year, The Right Stuf blew out their remaining copies of Nuku Nuku OAV on VHS. I grabbed a set, thanking the gods of Anime that I got them before they were gone. Nuku Nuku OAV does not show up on the list of what you currently are working on bringing to DVD.
There are two other Nuku Nuku series that have yet to make it to America in anything other than very incomplete fansubs. They are Nuku Nuku TV, which from the two episodes I have seen is absolutely hilarious, and Nuku Nuku DASH! which is more serious and not as interesting to me as the former.
I know that "comedy" anime isn't as popular as space anime or shoujo or Giant Robot anime, but some of us enjoy the funny stuff. Nuku Nuku TV is to anime what Police Squad! was to American cop shows.
If you still have an in with King Music, please see what you can do about Nuku Nuku. If you put the TV series out as DVD (hell, if you put the first OAV out as DVD!) I will be very happy to buy it.
Take care,
Ms. Geek
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I will not pretend that I know much about it, but the Japanese studios don't have the money to produce the same kind of action movies that Holywood produces.
So their outlet is anime. But in some ways, anime is better, because they can let their imagination go wild and give us wonders, whereas Holywood keeps regenerating cliches one after the other. How many times do we need to see the all american hero saving the country from the bad guys ?
By the way, my favorite one is Space Battleship Yamato (aka Star Blazers). It might be old hat, but if you like your anime full or heroism, romance and battles(and keeping the "science" part as close to reality as possible, without any magic, just bare metal), then it is just the right stuff!
OK, I know that I'm going to get nailed but I need to ask what is the difference between the Japanese and "American" versions of DBZ. More serious, knock-knock jokes, swearing...
Back I go to watch Cowboy Bebop on DVD
robotech yeah, you know you remember brave rick hunter and that hottie minmei. robotech was the anime series that hit us television-weaned north american kids in the sweet spot back in the 80's. now that it's out on dvd, we can enjoy the massive nostalgia rush that comes with it. it's not the best out there by any means (kind of cheesy and overwrought at times, with washed out audio) but it sure seemed epic when i was nine... neon genesis evangelion mix equal parts x-files, enders' game, and big badass robots with guns. serve on a bed of broiled angst. eva is a truly great piece of anime marred by a bizarre conclusion. earth is under siege by hellaciously destructive critters called angels. secret government agencies and international strike forces mobilize to stop them, but the only real hope lies in the Evanglion Units: twenty-story tall robots piloted by a bunch of screwed up fourteen year olds. The series starts out as solid action, grows a healthy head of intrigue and character-driven angst, then -- around episode 19 or 20 -- veers into the world of the truly bizarre. By the time the conclusion rolls around, one of the best series around has turned into a bad acid trip. watch it for the art, watch it for the deep characterization. watch it for the great action sequences, and the sharp plot twists. don't watch it if you want a satisfying tie-up to the series. cowboy bebop ooh lah lah. this, in my opinion, is what solid dramatic anime should be. the art is exquisite, the writing is tight and witty without being too cute, and the jazz/blues/bebop soundtrack is a pleasure. spike and jet are odd-couple bounty hunters slogging through space trying to make a living and listening to charlie parker. as with all good pulp heroes, their pasts come back to haunt them. the series never gives in to cheesy cliches (save one episode that's a throway joke for fans) and it develops strong, solid characters. unlike eva, it avoids gratuitous melodrama and emotional manipulation in favor of a subplot plot that builds slowly over the entire series, then explodes in the last few episodes. spike, the grumpy twenty-something loner who favors martial arts and rumpled blue suits over guns and leather, is one of the cooler protagonists around. run, don't walk, to a video shop or a suncoast. get this series. trust me. trigun it's zany, over-the-top, and shrouded in a haze of smoke from all the gunfire. trigun is a space-opera scifi western series that follows vash, the humanoid typhoon: a gunman so dangerous that a $$60,000,000,000 price is on his head. The other regular characters are two insurance agents hired to follow him, keeping track of the cataclysmic destruction that Just Seems To Happen whenever he's around. See Vash take on hundreds of bandits with a handgun and a trash can lid! See him dodge bullets! Laugh as he steals donuts! It's a good action romp, and the last 10 episodes or so deliver some solid dramatic material.
cypherpunks/cypherpunks works for me
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
Well, that was a terribly formatted first post. My apologies, I'm used to plastic.com's auto-formatting. i've got a properly formatted version of the above at my home page.
--the verb
Most anime shown in American Cable is extremely bad. This is because most anime is even worse, just like most movie production in the US is bad-cable-night material.
But the good anime is worth tolerating everything else. Just remember that the tastes in anime are as varied as in mainstream film, and that they also have their low standards. If you see something you don't like, don't think it's representative of everything you'll find. Just don't follow the recommendations from that person anymore.
That said, here are some recommendations of what "serious anime" I like (as opposed to comedies, which would make a very different list) :
1. Serial Experiment Lain: great science fiction centered on the future Internet. If you have read Philip K. Dick books (Ubik, Man in the High Castle, etc) you'll see a lot of that here. THIS is "The Matrix" of Anime, although I liked it more than said movie.
2. Ghost in the Shell: someone said this was "The Matrix" of anime, but I think it has more to do with "Blade Runner", topic and style-wise.
3. Monokoke Hime: a very good fantasy film done in Anime. This is fantasy anime properly done.
4. Graveyard of Fireflies: the best dramatic movie I have ever seen (and I normally hate them), it just happens to be Anime. Be warned: this will make you cry.
5. Neon Genesis Evangelion: science fiction mixed with Kabbalah mixed with Jungian psychology mixed with Freudian psychology mixed with Gnostic Mythology mixed with a bit of fan-service. Surprisingly good and addictive.
6. Vision of Escaflowne: a very good fantasy tale with great character development, if a little bit corny at times.
7. Revolutionary Girl Utena: think a fairy-tale, with LOTS OF LSD thrown in, and some very interesting symbology. Really weird, and really good.
9. Akira: It had to appear somewhere. If you can't see beyond the action and violence (as in follow the plot and the implications), it's a good violent action sci-fi movie. If you can, it's much, much, much better.
10. Perfect Blue: a thriller in the style of old Albert, set in the weirdness of contemporary pop-idol culture in Japan. Very, very well done.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
It is definitly NOT cool that a mainstream source pick up on anime. Anime is great, anime is fascinating, anime is cool, and it would be a tragedy for it to be picked up and homogenized into American culture. And so while it may be selfish, I hope that anime never succeeds in mainstream America... I hope that is limited to fringe comic shops and fserv-packed IRC channels.
Anime provides a unique view of Japanese culture and language. Once you sub it into English, warp the characters, and merchandise the hell out of it, anime ceases to be an encounter with a foreign culture and starts to become yet another tribute to ourselves.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
I'm slowly watching through the Pioneer DVD set (Region 1 but watching it in jap+sub) which one of my housemates owns. I'm almost converted-enough to go with him to the animesoc at uni (u of Reading, UK), if I weren't so lazy.
There are several reasons why the orgional soundtrack may be better then a Dub:
1) the most obvious, a dub may be done cheaply with lower quality actors.
2) What they say may sound wierd in english. By reading rather then hearing you may not notice the poor translation
3) The mouth will actualy move with the audio
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
After reading the article, I downloaded La Blue Girl off the local collage LAN. But what I have doesn't seem to match the description on the site at all, which described the film as a high quality thriller about a child actress becoming an actor. What I got was a retarded tentacle rape Hentai.
Does anyone know what show the author actually meant?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Ok, so I'm a moron. I missread 'perfict blue'. Which isn't on the lan for me to pirate either :(
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I don't mean to interrrupt your thread or anything but I just had to warn you that the New York Times website requires a free registration to read their articles.
Thank You -- The Management.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
The ultimate link site for all anime, praise be its name, is the animation turnpike,
Anime Turnpike
where you can graze and explore for days.
If you want some comments and suggestions there's a number of good anime review pages. Here's a page with links to a couple
Anime Meta review sources page
There's a link there to Anime on DVD, which is your best source for finding out what's commercially available.
As for the article, looked like a bunch of factoids compressed into a rambling article. But at least it was relatively fair on both sides.
from the nyt article :
At times, anime figures look strikingly like the sexualized children created by the Chicago outsider artist Henry Darger.
not having heard of henry darger i went and did a quick google search
some info from here
His landlord was cleaning out his room after his death and came across a startling discovery: alone in his room, Darger had created a beautiful and violent fantasy world, primarily embodied in a 15,000 page epic narrative, "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion."
several illustrations from this huge work shown on this site
after viewing these images i would question th nyt's use of th word sexualised - and on another matter, th nyt article suggests anime is a corruption of th english word animation - i had always understood it to be from th french word animé
Another really cool anime by the guys who made Lain is "Nia under 7" which is really bizare and kind of a strange comedy, but still really cool
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I hear that cartoon has got the boom anime babes that make you think the wrong thing
Anime is a medium, not a genre.
Don't get me wrong, I like Ranma, but the animated version is kinda crappy.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
for the most part it was intended to be a psychological treatise from the beginning. The hook (and the animation budget) was the awesome mecha/end-of-the-world storyline. I've heard accusations that this was director Hideaki Anno's way of putting his own emotions and feelings into a show. Also, I heard that the end was not the intended one... it was shorter, and in retaliation it was given a shot of LSD by the production team due to political/financial factors. It gave Anno a chance to rant back at Gainax [replace "Shinji" with "Hideaki" and watch those episodes again, it starts to make sense! (-: ]
I for one really enjoyed it... wonderful characters, animation, action, drama... it was somewhat mysterious at times, frustrating at others, but in retrospect it makes sense. You like it more two weeks _after_ seeing the whole thing.
Check out some of the lists that people post here for stuff to see... cover art and blurbs on the back don't really give you an idea of what you're in for.
If you can get your hands on "Vandread" or "Martian Successor Nadesico", you'll probably appreciate them. (Mecca in space, nice animation, and funny as hell)
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
<snip>
Ghost in the Shell: someone said this was "The Matrix" of anime, but I think it has more to do with "Blade Runner", topic and style-wise
No, it's the other way around. The Matrix draws a great many inspirations from anime. In fact, the Wachowski brothers copied several scenes from Ghost in the Shell verbatim. check it out
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
I think Anime in the mainstream is a good thing. As long as the studios can continue to make the same high quality work whilst maintaining their integrity I dont see a problem.
Many people here(Tokyo) are dirt poor busting there balls for what they love to do(anime), while folks over at American animation studios are living a much more comfortable life. A typical budget for an animated film in Japan is $3-$10 million while in America it is $55-$120 million.
I think Pixar's work is "maistream" and very well done. Why cant "Anime" well done and popular too?
What we need is more westernized grown anime.. Where as you said there is a cultural difference, not to mention those dialogues would turn any average joe/hillbilly into a laughing frenzy. American anime (Spawn..looosly..) is a darker, more mature variety. I don't want to see girls getting handled by an 8 tounged demon, I want to see a dramatic plot with amazing animators and amazing characters/development. US dialogue translations have just never quite cut it, and I'm a huge fan (of course exceptions do exist). The only other thing that always gets me is those moments of sillyness, where a character just buggers out with big cutsie crap... the reason I can never watch a full tenchi epsiode without getting revolted.
Bring on the mecha! hehehe
-M
"Life is all about strategy, mathematics and psychological perceptiveness."
That would rock... maybe Elton John or Randy Newman doing the soundtrack... songs like "my parents are dead and I live in a cave", or the sensational show stopper "the bomb", and of course the touching number..."im dying from radiation"... hey thats what happens when crappy mainstream gets hold of stuff! WORD!
nice trool. NS is just sex and violence.