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An Extensive History of Anime
Ninja Master Gara writes "While it is a bit dated, Right Stuf has a fascinating set of in depth history of anime in Japan and the west and follows the development of both cultures, including landmark series from the 60s, the 70s, the 80s and beyond, the origins of today's major anime release companies, and commentary on various aspects of the industry and culture. While it is labelled an 'Introduction to Anime', it serves as a much more interesting look back for long time anime fans. Right Stuf also has a great timeline of important releases."
2015: Hentai beamed straight into my mind :)
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
1) Normal looking characters
2) Slightly pumpkinish characters
3) Quite pumpkinish characters
4) Very pumpkinish characters
5) Talking pumpkin heads
Isn't it just a cartoon? Ok, ok, it's not a 'toon in a traditional sense, but still...
This isn't nearly as interesting as some of the bargain's they've been running recently. One of their higher-ups is a regular visitor in the animeondvd.com chatroom and usually pops up with insane new bargains to drain all our wallets every week or two. They had an insanely good deal going on almost-used cd's awhile back, a pack of 6 soundtracks that simply had marred cases, nothing wrong with the discs themselves and they were selling them for next to nothing, they clear out lots of older shows too if you missed them the first time around. Always a good thing to check right stuf's bargain a couple times a week if you're an anime fan.
WTF is an 'almost-used' CD? It's one of those boolean things, like being pregnant, or so I have always thought.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
... can somebody let me know if it covers tentacle porn? I might brave the Slashdotting...
Cartoon network got me hooked on cowboy bebop.
Everybody I know think's it's absolutely amazing
and has gotten some, or at least stays up to watch
the show. What some people don't get about anime
is, it's a great way to put a great idea in front
of people for a lot less money than making a live
action dealio. You get that huge screen feel with
paper and ink. I saw a copy of the non-import
japanese version of the Cowboy Bebop movie go for
500 bucks on eBay a while ago.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
Crappy Anime is crappy! News at Eleven!
Seriously, you might as well say "All Sci-Fi movies suck!" just because of the incredible crapitude of Battlefield Earth.
You leave Cartman's mom alone!
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
"Hey baby, why don't you come over and watch some
bebop with me"
works a lot better than the old monteray jack
chicken quesadilla gambit taco bell seems to think
you should try based on their recent commercial.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
The linked article, while informative (I didn't know Nadia was so popular, for example), is really just an infomercial for Right Stuf (an anime distributor).
So I'll offer a plug of my own. I like AnimeNation...they have a great news section and a Q&A column "Ask John."
Sign in, and turn off the category in your filters. Problem solved.
It's sad that the people who aren't into anime always post in the anime threads about how they don't like anime; just filter it out guys.
Actually, the parent is pretty funny this time. Piss him off by modding him up.
I'd like to see anime biographies, myself. My life story should be told the way it should have gone down - with ninjas, giant robots and pink haired bisexual schoolgirls.
As the production costs for cartoons continue to go down, and as the aggragate disposable income of the human race continues to rise (assuming it isn't squandered in senseless war, of course) I think you'll see real expansion of the medium. I'd like to see more educational/historical work, along the lines of the Cartoon History of the Universe and it's ilk, in animated form.
I'm a firm believer that educational material should be "targeted" at adults. Nothing then stops children from watching it. This is why the Cartoon History of the Universe is good (was good when I was a kid,) and all this supposedly-history-teaching crap they show on TV recently has been such crap (Hysteria, I think it is called, is sub-dreadful.)
It's not an inherent limitation of the form. TV is plenty childish without extra effort put in to dumb it down.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
with anime is there's too much of it =) I mean,
with 50++ NEW anime series a year, and a dozen new
movies and OVAs, who can either afford the time or
money to watch it all. Too bad, cause half of it is
usually better than most stuff on (american) cable
tv and hollywood.
why anime is so good? Well, for me, half the fun is
to admire the animation. Granted, anime is often
choppy and no that full of motion, but even simple
drawings can amaze me, in that I think it is fantastic
that we humans can draw that well. Other thing is that
if you watch something barely decent over a period of
8-9 hours, you'll end up loving it whether it's mediocre
or not, as it really grows on you in the end (also because
in anime, there's usually a storyline). Actually, anime
are often remarkable for their storyline, IMO, and that
only seems logical. Let's face it, there's often very little
ot none motion in a typical tv anime, so the only thing that's left is a good story and good characters. So I always like to say anime is a storytelling medium.
Other aspects of anime I like is the cultural difference. Japan is far less americanized than most modern countries I know of, and has an unique mixture of old and new that makes it all that more interesting. I also like the language.. don't understand much =D, but the language often sounds sort of poetic to me. And that's not only something I'm imagining I think, as I already speak 3 different languages fluently (although they're all indo-european languages, so what would I know =D).
for people wanting to check out anime:
Movies:
- jin roh (2000/2001-something)
For anyone looking for something dark and moody. The drawing
style is realistic (no oversized eyes/breasts here), and the animation quality is really brilliant (studio IG know their stuff). The storyline is a little hard to follow sometimes because of the many different factions involved each with their own motives, but in the end, it's all very poetic and well executed. Also watch out for the soundtrack, by Mizoguchi Hajime; especially the theme melody is one of the best I've ever heard in any movie.
- sen to chihiro no kamikakushi / spirited away (2002/2003)
watching this at a cinema is truly a fabulous experience as it's like being swept away by thousands and thousands of brilliantly drawn paintings.. the visual qualities, at a cinema, are extraordinarily beautiful. Hisaishi Jo provides a great score, as usual, and all in all this is another masterpiece from the legendary writer-director-drawer Miyazaki Hayao. Probably gonna win oscar, too.
I'm sure I'll get moderated into oblivion for this, but I'm new to anime. So just what is OVA? It's mentioned tons of times in the linked article, and I assume it's a acronym, but what for? Is it like a made for TV movie? Or a miniseries? Or am I totally off base?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
After reading the article, I think we have to emphasize two important things that made anime much more popular in the 1990's.
:-)
The first is the rapid acceptance of the DVD format. Unlike previous home video playback formats, DVD's allow you to have multiple-language soundtracks and multiple language caption/subtitling tracks on a single disc. In one fell swoop, the entire debate of subtitled versus dubbed anime has been rendered moot.
The second is the success of Bandai Entertainment in bringing over a good number of anime titles created by Bandai Visual and Sunrise (Bandai I believe owns Sunrise) to the US market. This really opened the floodgates for lots of anime titles to finally be sold in US-legal editions.
Let me update this history of anime to talk a bit about some of the new trends in anime.
Forget about seeing nudity any more except for a few exceptions. The Japanese are getting closer and closer everyday to adopting the Puritain view on nudity, i.e. that it's bad and abnormal. However, fan service (underware shots, provocative poses) is still rampant, especially in anime targeted toward women (trying to get male viewers).
Along with the new censoring of nudity, there comes the censoring of violence. I recently watched a series called Noir, a action-spy type series, where people shot guns and got shot, but there was no blood. Anything "gruesome" was off camera and or only shown in the shadows. This make the anime feel very fake. However, the censoring of violence isn't as bad yet as it is for nudity. There are some great exceptions out there, like Cowboy Bebop, Naruto, and Hellsing.
One bad trend, particularily irritating to me, is the overuse of the cliché dweeb who can't handle women, yet is surrounded by them. He'll bleed from the nose, can't say anything with confudence, be in constant fear of reprisal, and perhaps in the end, if he's lucky, get a solitary kiss. This is Japan's version of the hopless moron who's married to a hot wife on US's sitcom TV. They all need to die.
However, all is not bad in anime land. When Slam Dunk came out back in the day, it started what I call the sports anime craze. Now there's anime about soccer (Whisle), boxing (Hajime no Ippo), tennis (The Prince of Tennis), and even the board game Go (Hikaru no Go). This type of anime is great for buidling up suspense, and it'll get you addicted like a crack addict. The art of creating cliff-hangers that make you foam at the mouth has been perfected by the Japanese.
Finally, the other great trend I'm noticing is anime adapted from literature rather from manga. Two anime of this type that I can think off the top of my head are Juuni Kokki and Crest of the Stars. You won't find any other anime that can compete with the plot and character development. Let's hope Japanese anime studios don't adopt Hollywoods attitudes towards book to movie production.
Another great source of new anime is via BitTorrent, AnimeSuki provides links to most new fansubs as they come out. Since a lot of fansub groups now distro with BitTorrent you can often get new releases within hour(s) of them hitting the net.
Hokusai's - "Pearl Diver and Two Octopuses"
I hate Grammar Nazi's