Just finished watching RahXephon recently. Man, what a mess.

Hey look, I just wrote a review for it, too!

I don't know if I have the energy in me to even read that. I was talking to some random guy on MAL while he was watching it, and he gave me like a novel essay about how terrible it was. To the point of just, wow I don't give a shit lol. Some people look way too hard to find answers to every little thing or something. I dig Rahxephon a lot myself. This site answers a lot:
http://www.kenoki.com/nko/faqs.html

The Eva similarities are there in spades, but they're still different. I'd say Eva is more psychological, and Rahxephon is more philosophical/plot focused, and simply a romance in the end.

That's all I'll care to say about it since I'm so tired of talking about this one with most people out there. I liked it, didn't take it insanely seriously and it was just cool. Fun show, the end. lol, I like it more than Eureka Seven. Ever since those two Bones has pretty much dropped the ball and most modern mecha sucks balls.

Anyone bothered watching Satoshi Kon's "Perfect Blue" ('97) and comparing it to Aronofsky's "Black Swan"?
It's simply ridiculous. The bath scene in "Requiem for A Dream" is also a direct copy (same cuts/angles/everything) of the same scene in Perfect Blue, so it's hard to think it's a coincidence.

RahXephon did have its moments, some of them fucking brilliant, but it gets so unfocused and dull in the middle.

I haven't seen either of them (due to a lack of interest, more than anything else), but I do remember there being a bit of buzz about it when Black Swan came out. I can't remember how that played out (like Aronofsky fessed up or anything), but I'm pretty sure it was a thing.

You know, a family member talked to me about how a scene from Snow White and the Huntsman was a ripoff of a Ghibli film (she wasn't sure which one). I haven't seen that film, but it's getting me to wonder if these kinds of homage/ripoffs aren't a sign that anime films are being respected in a backhanded way.

Then of course there's Paprika vs Inception. Though I think I've heard both are loosely based off some novel or something I guess? Not sure... I can't stand going back to Inception though. That fucking dumb girl ruins the whole thing.

I downloaded maiden rape assault and tired to make it work. Unfortunately, I think I need to set my computer to some Japanese setting and i'm not about to do that. It's that stupid elle_01.exe file. It just won't work.

Whelp, that marks the first and last time I click on this thread.

I was joking about the Maiden Rape Assault dude But just use applocale, you don't need to change your computer's settings

Man did I hype Durarara for myself. This show sucks ass. The warm tone of seeing the city in and out is good like glaze, but the story is boring as hell. Just a bunch of really annoying characters or cardboard ones that offer nothing. The negativity throughout drags the viewer to no end. The subplot with the Headless Rider was already the nail in the coffin for me. When all of that mystery was revealed I knew this show jumped the shark, and that was within the first four episodes. Izaya rules, and the gag of Shizuo breaking something and stomping on it gave me a quick laugh, but man is this anime super lame.

Izaya peaked it on episode 2's climax, but fuck this show.

It's really fucking boring

Ugh! The music at the beginning of maiden rape assault is so horrible and repetitive. I can hardly play this thing! That repetitive violin is just shear agony to listen to when I'm trying to read dialog.

My favoritos are:

-Dragon Ball
-Trigun
-Yu Yu Hakusho
-Naruto
-One Piece
-Death Note
-Inuyasha
-Zodiac Knights

I not a fan of anime at all, but I recently stumbled upon a show called Cromartie Highschool (or something) and it's fucking hilarious. Anyone know this show?

Have you tried Baccano? If not, you might like it better.

I haven't seen it, but I do know of it. It follows the Excel Saga school of thought, which mirrors the Airplane! and Naked Gun school of thought:

Throw a million jokes at the screen. Most of them will stick, and some of them will be gut-bustingly hilarious.

Cromartie is great, favorite comedy anime along with Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Never actually completed it though
Fuckin great OP too

I probably will. My sister's been pestering me about watching it, but I passed on it in order to watch this horseshit show.

Paprika is based on a 1993 novel of the same name and Inception also took influence from there and the Satoshi Kon's adaptation.



It's not a coincidence. Kon has been a constant influence for filmakers, as well a lot of another anime stuff. From where do you think the Wachowski brothers took the idea of matrix? it's so blatantly similar to Ghost in the Shell that I'm sure they said something like 'let's do this as a live action'.

Note: I remember the existence of a website with some comparisons: http://www.mkygod.com/matrixgits/page1.html

RahXephon's idea it's good, but the plot development is lacking. In a way, I feel the same about Persona - Trinity Soul.

I saw The Sword of the Stranger last night. Pretty good stuff! good samurai action, great plot and animation.

Cool, hopefully you'll like it better.

On another note, I finally got around to finishing Darker than Black recently. While it was certainly well done, I didn't really find any of the characters be very interesting to follow besides maybe November 11 and Gai Kurasawa.

Most characters on DtB die before they could be interesting, Like Havoc, but I thougth Hei was pretty inteteresting, and so were Huang and Yin once you got to know their backstories.
That crazy chinese dude with eplosive blood was entertaining to follow too.

This is a rather interesting video on the anime industry in the US:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYGj7pmb93A

I really agree with this guy, personally Ive noticed that the industry isn't as strong as it was about 10 years ago. I was personally sad that Bandai announced this year that they were leaving the US anime industry because they have brought out so many great shows. I personally support the industry as much as I can by buying shows that I really enjoy, sure I download shows to see if I enjoy it, but I watch the show in it's entirely before I buy it. Do you think Netflix or Crunchyroll are hurting the anime industry because they don't make enough money from people who don't want to buy? I feel that physical media is dead and people are careful on what they want to buy. Go to your local Best Buy and see how small the anime section is. 10 years ago, it was huge selection of shows and movies that took up 2 shelves, but nowadays you barely get 2-3 section with a majority of it being DBZ, Bleach, Naruto, Studio Ghilbli films.

Also does anybody collect anime? I am a huge fan of collecting myself here is my DVD collection:

http://lupin99.dvdaf.com/

I wish, buy the BDs and shit, but I would have import it all.

I tried collecting manga too, but only a few are sold here. The usual big 3 of shounen, the NGE manga, Claymore, Bakuman, Gantz and some shoujo stuff I don't care about are the only titles I see consistently in the stores. Sometimes not even that. Everything is either really rare(and sometimes expensive too) or non-existestant.
The only manga I physically own is a Berserk volume which was a fucking miracle that I found it on some random bookstore, a few Claymore volumes, and some Bleach from when I used to read it. Vagabond got translated and printed in my country, quality work too, and I thought it would be a good chance to get a hold of it, but the prices were absurd, like 40R$ each volume, and Vagabond has 27 volumes I think. No way I can afford that.

Whoo-hoo, just finished watching Gungrave for the first time since...I dunno, 2005? Amazing shit. I forgot just how amazing.

I wrote a review for it, naturally.

You know, I was going to start watching Princess Jellyfish tonight, but Gungrave sounds astoundingly more awesome and less Thanks!

Princess Jellyfish is rather good, I just wish they make a 2nd season of it. Gungrave is probably the best video game adaptation ever.

I have Gungrave on my HD, plan on watching it soon

On a unrelated note, started watching Haibane Renmei today. I feel like I'm going to like this one a lot.
I'm pretty much an Yoshitoshi Abe fanboy by now.

Gungrave is awesome. Great animation, great characters, cool plot and an English dub that doesn't suck. Brandon Heat is an awesome "quiet man" and one of the best anime gunman I've seen so far. I got really wrapped up in the whole thing when I watched it, somehow even the wacky shit that starts to happen later on didn't seem that out there.

Haibane is simply amazing, probably one of Abe best work along with Lain. Everything he did except NieA_7 was excellent. Such a shame he hasn't done anything for anime recently.

Is NieA_7 bad? I plan on watching it too. Yeah it's shame he hasn't done anything.

NieA_7 isn't bad; actually, it's quite good. It's just really weird.

It's not weird, just disappointing. I really hated that alien character NieA, she was just a rather annoying bratty character. It had some good moments, but compared to his other work, it's his weakest imo.

I do, and I really started to pick them up a few years ago when I decided that it's something that is worth buying. I wouldn't be a fan of anime if it weren't for companies (read: people) putting their necks on the line for such a niche market. While I am picky about what I buy, I still have a decent collection (about 50 series/titles) and I plan on buying more in the near future.

As for the video, while I agree with the guy's sentiment (and appreciate his "wake-up call" approach), I don't think it's quite that black and white. Yes, there are terrible fans (just like in anything else, for example, heavy metal) rife with entitlement issues and whining, but the studios could be doing more to encourage these fans to contribute as opposed to alienating them. Yes, it's amazing to have services like CrunchyRoll, Hulu, etc., where people can easily watch anime, but this whole Blu-Ray reverse-importation paranoia is getting silly (there has to be a reasonable solution for this). We need to be able to make a compromise (on the internet? Hah!) between the two or else this just get worse.

Of course, these are extremes. There are many good people trying to do what they can with what they have, but their efforts go unnoticed far too often. It only the extremists that are the loudest, and it's unfortunate how they skew social perceptions.

I agree about the reverse blu ray importation. But it's more of the Japanese companies who don't want the US companies to release reverse importation because it cost lest compared to Japanese releases (seriously imports are fucking expensive). I am curious on how a company like Funimation is able to stay in the game regardless of selling whole boxsets at a low price.

And now, I finally present my opinion on Black Lagoon. Spoiler Alert: I loved it.

Also, as a bonus, I decided to throw my feelings on the belated final episode of Persona 4 - The Animation out there, as well.

I wish I could say I liked the new Black Lagoon OVA as much as the first two installments, but yeah. It focused way too much on random side characters and dumb kids.

Still not bad, high budget action and fun, but not what I wanted.

I actually liked the twins arc. Enjoyable and f-ed up. I thought the one girl in the final arc of the second season getting brutally beaten is more screwed up [you probably know who I'm talking about] (something must be wrong with me). I do agree that the main characters aren't as developed as they should be. Felt like the show needed a third season badly to do just that.

My problem with Roberta's Blood Trail is that, unlike the rest of the series, it took itself way, way too seriously. Rock's all pretending to be Chessmaster, Revy's being all mopey, and the brutal action has none of the cheer of the TV series. It's just dark for the sake of being dark.

Any fans of Ao No Exorcist here? I've watched some episodes and really loved it so far, the episode that appears Kuro the cat touches me :')

I completely hated Rock in it, yeah.

Hopefully it continues to get more adaptations down the road though, the whole series seems popular enough.