Holy shit, hopefully he was joking or on drugs.

It would work better if Light weren't the villain and didn't treat people like ants.

No it isn't, and it's a dime a dozen on DA.

Wrapped up Black Butler the other day, graphic violence, bloody murders, rampant gender-bending (I still wasn't sure if Grell was male or female by the end of the show) and pretty good animation and dub. Rather enjoyable for me.

And last night I started on Tiger and Bunny, this one is gonna be good methinks.

I started watching Saber Marionette J the other day. I'm liking it so far, even if it's a bit predictable. However, a lot of my friends recommended it to me and said it was worthwhile all in all. We'll see how that goes!

Anyone watching anything from this season?

Gonna start checking out Sakamichi no Apollon soon. It has the same director, music director/writer, and animation studio as Cowboy Bebop.

It is. It's fairly predictable, as is any prime-time 26-episode shounen action anime, but damn is it a lot of fun.

I've heard about that. I had already picked out shows to watch before I came across it though. I try not to have too heavy a load. The animation for SnA looks really nice and unique.

*perks up* What? He has a new series?

Oh... adapted from a josei manga... Hmm, I don't know, I guess I could give it a shot...

Those last seasons have been boring as fuck.

Space Brothers looks good.

Yeah Space Brothers is really good. Really feel-good anime. I think its my favorite of the season.

At a glance it kind of gives me Planetes vibes, anything like that? I still need to see Moonlight Mile, I wonder if that was decent.

Finally watched Mononoke Hime.
Pretty good. I wasn't expecting anything special, but I was pleasantly surprised.

It's a fine film, but it pales--PALES--in comparison to Castle of Cagliostro or Castle in the Sky.

Watching ep.3, See Barnaby training with machines.

My reaction.

Apparently my statement could stand for some clarification. To begin, I'm not comparing characters (Light is obviously nothing like Goku) but rather their place in the overall story. More details in the spoiler:





While everyone has the right to their own opinion, to say that Princess Mononoke "pales in comparison" I think deserves some qualification. I admit that Mononoke is my favorite Ghibli film, but Castle in the Sky is second and Castle of Cagliostro is a definite high-note of Miyazaki's career. I'm not saying that my opinion is right and yours is wrong, but I am saying that I think all three are quite comparable, and I'd like to know why you think Princess Mononoke falls so short.

Ok yes your point needed clarification and now I understand where you are coming from. Good thing you typed "plot may not be a complete beat-for-beat retelling", because I would have made that point myself. An honest perspective, though, so thanks for taking the time to break it down.

Can anyone recommend some series where the atmosphere is enhanced by the music? Like Samurai Champloo with all the hip hop music and cultural references. Another one with a badass soundtrack is Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. I guess it started airing in like early April? Anyway, I've only watched two episodes so I haven't really gotten into the story yet, but the artwork is fucking wicked, and it's got a jazzy soundtrack like Cowboy Bebop that adds to the retro look and vibe of the show.

Man, I know a lot of great anime with wonderful soundtracks.

Monster has a fantastic orchestral score that complements every scene.
FLCL uses rock songs by The Pillows as its soundtrack to great effect.
It's pretty widely agreed that, even though Noir is merely okay as an anime series, its soundtrack is fucking incredible.
Death Note uses huge orchestras and booming choirs that make the series a lot more fun and a lot more engrossing than it would be without it.
Hajime no Ippo's soundtrack is quite varied and fits every scene perfectly. It also helps that it was written by the guy who did Trigun's soundtrack.
Speaking of which, Trigun.
While I prefer Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood to the 2003 series in many ways, the 2003 series had a phenomenal score.
BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad and Nana are two anime that involve characters in bands; the former has a Rage Against the Machine style, the latter a more 80s punk vibe.

My favourite anime is Rozen Maiden, thanks to, among a whole lot other things, the amazing Victorian soundtrack.

Also, I second Noir.

After the epic conclusion of Fullmetal Alchemist (A love interest I share with RageW), Hellblazer gave me the files of Samurai Champloo and I must say that I'm already sold after 3 episodes. The atmosphere, the music, the characters are all awesome. I'm becoming an anime fan

A lot of stuff they air on Adult Swim (including FMA and Samurai Champloo) are series that have wide appeal, so even folks who generally don't like anime can get into those shows.

Maybe they have wide appeal because they don't suck...Stop wasting my fun!

He's got a point!

As for unique soundtracks, I think I'd throw down Blue Submarine No. 6. For all of it's sci-fi/naval war action, it's acid jazz soundtrack fits weirdly well. Cowboy Bebop's already been mentioned, but it's soundtrack is by Yoko Kanno, a favorite among anime fans. Wouldn't hurt to see what else she has done (Escaflowne, Macross Plus, Ghost in the Shell: SAC).

That engineer guy in Tiger and Bunny is great, "ARE YOU ASLEEP YET!!!".

About 15 episodes in so far, still enjoying it, Barnaby isn't quite as annoying anymore and Tiger is somewhat less retarded. The animation is holding up well too, everything looks pretty slick, fights are glorious etc.

Anyone who skipped out on the Patlabor OVA's / TV series and just watched the movies is totally missing out. Weirdest show ever, it's like... pretty drab and just about people doing their jobs, but that's the point heh. It's really unique and the cast is awesome. There's BD rips out there too for everything from it and damn it looks incredible.

I once tried to watch the second movie, fell asleep before the halfway mark.

Exactly. Have you seen the other stuff? I didn't care for the movies either because the entire cast was just a bunch of "random characters"... but once you see the OVA's and TV series (which are more comical) you actually get to know these characters. So I predict I'll enjoy the movies a lot more a second time around.

It was the same deal for me with GITS. No matter how many times I watched the movie growing up, I never really cared for it until after I saw SAC, so I actually got some character development there. Gave me a new appreciation for the movie (although I still don't like Innocence).

Oshii's just crazy. I loved Angel's Egg though, and it's probably one of the slowest and weirdest anime movies ever.

First Berserk movie was pretty terribad. Anyone who thinks this is a better representation of the story is completely bonkers. Worst pacing I've ever seen. Generic casting. Generic music. Super weird animation style.

A full TV series by Madhouse or something would've been far more ideal. This... is just a sloppy clip show at best.

Berserk seems like torture porn to me. Totally not cute.

Elfen Lied and Deathnote are awesome.

Protip: Elfen Lied is not really well liked around here.

Death Note is cool though.

Protip: Elfen Lied is not really well liked around here.

Death Note is cool though.

I never really watched much anime aside from entry-level stuff like Death Note (was really good but I never finished it) and DBZ. Speaking of which, I ended up watching all 276 godforsaken episodes of DBZ over the course of this school year.. good lord, it was worth it but jesus christ that took a long time. Saw Ozzy mentioned the Broly movies earlier, and although I agree he's a pretty retarded character (so strong he's able to pummel everybody ever until the movie's run time is up and Goku kills him with ONE PUNCH, WHAT?!) but at the same time he pretty much takes the whole DBZ concept to such an extreme it's kinda awesome as well. I'm not sure if I should follow up with the original Dragon Ball or GT... perhaps neither

The anime sucks, yeah. However, the manga is quite good.

Going through Angel Beats now, this is good. Somehow I think I won't like the ending but who knows.

EDIT: Finished, really enjoyed it, the ending in particular was quite unexpected (Rather sad too).

And recently started on Scrapped Princess. Hey, the guy who said it was a popcorn anime was quite right.

By the time DBZ got around to the end of the Cell saga, everyone was too powerful for there to be much more substance. It was too much about the next type of power up. As far as Brolly, seems they were looking to make a character on par with or greater than Cell's threat level but when they got around to figuring out how to win, they just threw in that stupid technique for Goku to win.

The awesomeness of the entire Dragon Ball series correlates to time. The earlier episodes were the best and the latter ones declined. And GT is garbage that should never have existed especially since there's no manga and I don't consider it canon.

Dragon Ball allows for more humor, some of it pretty crude and funny, and characters have more weakness since it's before everyone was super powerful. Also it's nice to see characters that are more joke characters in Dragon Ball Z (due to them not being powerful enough to really fight or help) have important roles in Dragon Ball.

I highly recommend watching Dragon Ball as I consider it better than DBZ, but it is quite long. DBZ is more about fighting the next big bad enemy and the drama around that while Dragon Ball is more about going on the next adventure with the drama involved in that. Not as long as DBZ but it's like at least 150 episodes. So another year spent on Dragon Ball. Hah.

For DBZ movies, the Bardock movie is easily the best with Trunks' origin story being a fairly close second.

Before too long I'm going to be embarking on DBZ myself, it's been too long, I must see it now.

Eh, I don't know. Angel Beats was okay, I guess, but it just seems something could've been better about it.

Don't bother. Watch Fist of the North Star instead.