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Wraith
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Austin, Texas, USA
Aug 1999
time: 23:37
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Zenryaku,
Well, it's been quite a while since the last one of these. I'm not sure quite how long, since I can't seem to find it in the archives, but a year or two at least. A whole lot has happened since then, so I won't be trying to provide a comprehensive guide to releases, but rather hitting the high points.
Lots of important things have happened in the last two years. Probably the most prominent is that the anime and manga markets in the US have finally hit a consolidation phase. After several years of a skyrocketing number of releases, things are finally slowing down. The licensing companies have finally realized that they can't make money by just grabbing everything that comes out and hoping it sells here. Unfortunately, this is likely to hurt the chances of some very good niche titles being licensed, but it should also reduce the amount of utter drek that gets put on the shelves. This is hitting the manga market as well, but to a lesser degree. The main victim here seems to be ADV's manga division, who had been using the same "throw a bunch out and see what sticks" method.
We've also seen a Japanese licensor, Toei, try to enter the R1 market themselves. Unfortunately, so far all they've done is to prove the old adage that, to really mess up an R1 release, takes a Japanese company. Their releases so far have suffered from pretty much every mistake the R1 dubbing companies have made over the years, including dubtitle with very poor spelling and grammar. None of their releases were titles I've been interested in, so I'm not sure what their current schedule is, but last I heard they were all pretty much on indefinite hold.
In all, hopefully the consolidation will serve as a wake up call, both to the US companies and the Japanese ones. I've been hearing about insane bidding wars for certain titles, which leads the Japanese companies to expect higher prices on the rest of their catalogues, all of which is driving the costs involved way up. Now that companies are cutting back on their licensing, hopefully this will settle down to rational levels, which at least has the possibility of bringing a more high-quality titles over.
I've found myself collecting more manga titles recently. For the most part, the market is pretty well established, and now includes Del Ray. However, there are still some problems, most notably with Viz making unannounced edits to certain of their titles. A lot of people are quite upset with them over it, but they don't seem to care, so it's unlikely to see a change any time soon. Their most-affected titles seem to be the ones running in Shounen Jump, so luckily there isn't a whole lot in Hikaru no Go for them to change (so far they've rather inexpertly replaced a cigarette with gum in one scene), the only "sports" manga I've ever seen that I like.
Dark Horse comics has made some good moves with the Oh My Goddess line. They're going to start re-releasing the volumes already out, but to do so in an un-flipped manner, and they'll be including the color pages this time around. They're even going to restore the original names on the angels where they were changed (Holy Bell instead of Blessed Bell, for instance). All future releases of the manga will be in the new format, and this time they'll be following the Japanese release page counts instead of breaking things up by story arc.
Some quick recommendations:
Fruits Basket is still going strong in both the US and Japan, and often tops both sales charts. Highly recommended. This is a great mix of comedy, drama and romance, with some great characters. Hanajima and Hatori are my two favorites. The US release for this is already past where the anime ended.
Berserk is another great one, a dark medieval-era swords and sorcery setting. The US release is getting close to where the anime series ends, and is still going strong in Japan. At around 28 volumes, the creator says he's about a quarter or a third of the way through the story.
Aria is one I'd like to recommend. It's the closest in fell to Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou that I've seen translated. Unfortunately, this title was one of the victims of ADV's strategy, so only three volumes have been released and I haven't seen anything about volume four being scheduled for release. It's set in the future on a terraformed Mars, in a city patterned on Venice. The main character is training to be an Undine (their name for gondoliers). The "science" involved in the story doesn't bear any scrutiny, but it almost never gets a look, so that's not a big deal. It's just a great slice-of-life title.
Best of the recent releases is Yotsuba&, another title from the creator of Azumanga Daioh. This involves a quite young orphaned girl named Yotsuba (four-leaf clover), who's been adopted by a Japanese man. She's... rather weird, to put it mildly, and gets up to all sorts of things. Very funny series, highly recommended.
On the anime side, the biggest news is that most of the Studio Ghibli titles are now available. This includes Pom Poko, a title I was not expecting to make it to release here, thanks to one of the rather unusual weapons the tanuki have. Unfortunately, we're still waiting on Whispers of the Heart, apparently due to a licensing problem centered on the song Country Roads, which is used prominently in a couple places in the film. The current releases are pretty much as expected of Disney, but a couple of them seem to suffer from rather odd (that is, extremely loose) interpretation choices. Nothing too horrible, but still.
I'm not sure how many other titles to mention here. Paranoia Agent is out in full in the US now. CPM has finally finished releasing Patlabor TV, and will have Patlabor New Files out in a full set (mostly subtitles only) this year. Twelve Kingdoms is now completely out, and is supposed to be getting box sets soon. Texhnolyze and Read or Die the TV are completely released.
On the upcoming side, the first disc of Hare+Guu has been pushed back towards the end of the year. This seems to be at least partly due to one of the extras that will be included with the disc-one-with-box set, a chest-hair/afro wig. The reason for the inclusion of this item will become obvious only after you've seen a few episodes. This is probably the main comedy release I'm looking forward to.
Ah My Goddess TV is set to be released here soon. It's a very popular franchise, both here and in Japan, so I expect there will be more than one season to this, as there's lots and lots of manga stories left to go.
Banner of the Stars III is out in Japan, and has been licensed for US release, probably due next year. This is a very short two-episode OVA which mostly covers Jinto taking a sabattial from the Star Forces to go home and deal with Hyde system now that it's back under Abh control.
Genshiken is a recently started US release that's likely to appeal only to hard core anime fans. It's kind of the TV version of Otaku no Video, and covers an anime/manga/figure/cosplay club in a Japanese college. If you're in or near the center of anime fandom you'll get a kick out of this.
The characters in the show are particularly obsessed with an anime series called Kujibiki Unbalanced. As an extra, the DVDs are including three episodes of the fictional series (1, 25, and 26, I think).
Viz will finally be releasing the Hikaru no Go anime starting this year. The concept doesn't sound very exciting to watch, but it's definitely the best sports anime I've seen. The characters very much make the story work, and they manage to impart a good drama to what they have of go matches.
One of the never-thought-it'd-happen titles that have made it over recently is Kodocha (short for Kodomo no Omocha, Child's Toy). All sorts of rights issues have tangled up this title for years, but Funimation finally got it. Well, mostly; the first opening had to be replaced, and a scene in the first episode had to be altered a little to excise the song and a reference to its singer. Other than that a pretty solid, and very much anticipated, release.
Princess Tutu is a title that's suffered a major delay. ADV has had to completely change the release schedule and plan for this one. Unfortunately shoujo anime are still not doing well in the US (as oppossed to shoujo manga, which are doing extremely well), no matter how good they are.
The main new anime to hit TV is One Piece on Cartoon Network. Unfortunately, it has greatly suffered from edits. From the typical opening/ending replacements, to all sorts of poorly done overlays (replacing "Marines" with "Navy" or placing slingshots over guns, and so on), to entire story arcs being completely dropped and other episodes being spliced together. Out of the first 100 episodes, they seem to have eliminated over 40 episodes worth of material, at least in the airing. The DVDs are supposed to start coming out this year, so we'll see how poorly they get treated. It's another direct Toei release, so they're likely to be a complete mess.
Not to say those are all the good titles that have come out, but it's a pretty decent highlights list. Moving on to Japanese releases, thing are in a similar state. Although there have been a number of good titles, there haven't been that many truly exceptional stand-out titles, so this segment will be pretty short.
My top pick recently is definitely Kamichu (~Kamisama wa chuugakusei~). This translates roughly to "goddess is a middle school student". It's about a middle school girl, Yurie, who one night suddenly becomes a goddess, in the Shinto style. Unfortunately, she has no idea what she's actually the goddess of, much less what her powers are or how to use them. She ends up teaming up with her best friend and another girl named Matsuri, who's a shinto priestess at a local shrine, to try and figure things out. Great comedy in this one, from the over the top puns to subtle comedy.
The best drama series I've seen recently was Victorian Romance Emma. It was a bit short, only 13 episodes, and didn't cover anywhere near the full manga, but it did come to an end a reasonable story arc ending. This one is set in Victorian era England, and gets an amazing amount of details correct. it involves a maid and member of the gentry falling in love, which of course is against the social mores of the time. I doubt this one will ever get licensed for US release, although the manga might.
Other than that, a series called Honey and Clover has my attention. It's a mix of over-the-top comedy and drama, with plenty of romance mixed in. It's set in an art college, and centers on the students. It starts with the introduction of a new student, the incredibly short but incredibly talented girl Hagumi, who's work is already in major demand at the galleries. I've heard the manga is even better, so that's probably going to be something I'll have to check out sooner or later, and I hope one or the other gets licensed.
Well, I think that finally covers the most important points. Feel free to to ask questions or make recommendations, and so on. If discussion gets going, I'll probably start the thread up regularly again.
Wraith
"Curse you, Boxerman!"
-- Yotsuba ("Yotsuba&")
Last edited by Wraith on 29-08-2005 at 01:25
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Wraith
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Austin, Texas, USA
Aug 1999
time: 23:37
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--"Howl's Moving Castle was excellent - I saw it twice in theaters."
Heh. I completely forgot Disney put that in the theaters. Their usual barely-at-all Ghibli theatrical release, so it's not too surprising. Porco Rosso is still my favorite, but it was pretty good.
--"Well, Stand Alone Complex is still great."
I never really got into that one. It is one of the big name ones that hit Cartoon Network, though.
--"Another one I can recommend is Jin-Roh."
Definitely one of my favorite movies. It's been re-released at a lower price point recently, I think. I've got the original LE release, that came with a soundtrack CD. Love the end credit song, "Grace".
--"anime"
You know... if you don't like it, you can stay out of the thread. Just a thought.
--"I tried watching One Piece on cartoon network, but Loofie's (sp) voice grated on me so much that I didn't make it through the second episode."
I managed to watch two episodes of the CN airing, but not without a lot of angry shouting. Most of the voices aren't done well, and the edits and script changes were completely annoying.
--"Lately I've been watching Fushigi Yugi and Chrono Crusade,"
I thought Chrono Crusade was okay, but Fushigi Yuugi is one of the ones I really can't stand. I managed to watch the entire series, but not without a lot of effort. I think they could have done a good series with it, but it should have been about half as long. Cut out all the flashbacks and you'd be most of the way there... Unfortunately, most of the characters are way too annoying to make it enjoyable, even without the melodrama-to-slapstick jolts.
--"I watched the first disc of Gravion and the first two discs of Please Teacher"
Haven't seen Gravion, but I thought Please Teacher was a pretty stupid attempt at a romance comedy. Even without the odd concept, they did a pretty poor execution.
--"FMP: FUMOFFU and Cromartie when the box sets are released."
Gungrave was another one I haven't seen. I haven't seen Fumoffu, but FMP was very much not to my taste. I've heard Fumoffu is the better of the two, but it's still the same style of story, so I doubt it'd be a good one for me.
Cromartie was fairly amusing. I especially enjoyed Mechazawa and his little brother.
--"One Piece reminds me a lot of Dragon Ball Z. I like DBZ better."
Not really a surprise. They're both shounen action series, and they tend to be fairly similar in a lot of ways. One is what I call Shounen Action Pacing Syndrome, where they draw the fights out over ridiculous numbers of episodes. One Piece definitely suffers from it, although not quite as much as the various Dragonball series do. One Piece has the advantage, to me, of so completely not taking itself seriously.
The One Piece manga is a better choice than the anime. The anime added a few poorly done story arcs that weren't in the manga, and the manga doesn't have the same level of pacing problems. Only issue with the manga is that Viz decided in volume 5 to change Zoro's name to Zolo, supposedly for copyright issues.
Of course, I'd much rather be able to talk about the Hunter X Hunter anime, but so far it hasn't been licensed. Best of the shounen action genre, in my opinion. The manga is being released, but unfortunately it's a Viz release. So far they haven't edited it (as far as I know), but there's some later story arcs that will probably get at least some changes.
Wraith
"I do not fear death. What I fear is that my rage will one day fade away."
-- Kurapika ("Hunter X Hunter")
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jdd2007
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Cincinnati
Aug 2001
time: 00:37
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Anime makes all my Chinese friends paradoxically stupid. One of them just started crying about some show once. I'm not really friends with them anymore, but I still marvel at their academic proficiency whilst they while their time away with wicked Anime. And don't get me started on that fat guy who rode my bus in seventh grade and was into hentai. I didn't even know about that ****. He moved away, but his little "Dragon Ball X" comment still freak me the **** out. I saw that show once. Z I mean. That is some dumb ****. Funny **** though, one of my old friends did all these Dragonball moves with great enthusiasm and sound effects. We aren't friends anymore, but man that cracked me up. Is Dragonball even anime? My aforementioned Asians mainly speak about high school soap opera shows and stuff. They were ragging on The OC once, of which I honestly liked the first few episodes, because they said it is, how did they phrase it? "Unlikely scenarios and overacting." Yes, true story. I know.
I know.
Maybe I missed out though. Maybe anime is really cool. I haven't seen more than a couple episodes all the way through. The fat guy from the bus was learning Japanese. I hope you don't have to be so into that culture to understand and appreciate anime. That might turn me off. Being required to study and learn an entire language, that is. The guy had this tiny-ass book that he was supposedly learning from, but that was just retarded. I tried to tell him he would need to study for years in classes (Like James Bond did at Oxford) to have a real grasp of the tongue. Well, I guess to each his own in regards to anime. But I can't help being turned off by its representatives at my own particular high school. In 9th grade some enormous, previously enigmatic girl volunteered my English teacher some "music" which related strongly to Wilder's "Our Town." It turned out she brought in an anime tape, which had some unremarkable Japanese Rock interspersed with short monologues and dialogues yelled to the tune of
"No HARIMOTO, noooooo!"
"Samba kai, it my destiny!"
"But cousin, who will protect Bambi kai!?"
and so on. Yes. I know.
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Wraith
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Austin, Texas, USA
Aug 1999
time: 23:37
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--"Is Lupin the Third any good?"
Well, yes and no. It's been a long-running franchise, and a lot of different people have worked on it, so it varies. I haven't seen too much of it, but Miyazaki did one Lupin movie, Castle of Cagliostro. Nothing deep, but it's a fun little action movie.
--"I hope you don't have to be so into that culture to understand and appreciate anime. "
Of course you don't. That's why there are companies that bring it over, translate it, and dub into english.
Anyway, if you tell me what kind of shows and movies you like and don't like, I can offer some recommendations.
--"Any suggestions?"
Well, the obvious would be the rest of Miyazaki's movies, and if you like Millenium Actress then the rest of Satoshi Kon's works would be good as well.
Since you like Ghost in the Shell, another likely bet is Serial Experiments Lain, which deals with a similar question. However, it doesn't involve the action sequences, so if that's what you like about GitS it might not be for you.
The GitS movies were done by Mamoru Oshii, IIRC, so his other works could be good. That includes the Patlabor movies and Jin-Roh.
Anyway, more info on your likes and dislikes, outside of anime as well, is always helpful for forming recommendations.
--"I love the style of japanese comics and animation, but the stories just bore the crap out of me."
Sounds like you haven't found any of the good ones. I haven't even bothered to see Steamboy, based on the reviews I've read of it.
If you like action stuff, like X-Men and James Bond, give Read or Die a try. It's a short, three episode OVA series (you can get it all on one DVD) with great animation, a fun story, and good action (including a martial arts battle between two people who can phase through matter).
Wraith
"My book!"
-- Yomiko ("Read or Die")
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Seeker
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London Ontario
Jan 1970
time: 00:37
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Did you say that there are still new eps of 'Berzerk' coming out? When will they reach our benighted shores?
And what is it with Japanese and Giant Phallic-Prop Swords?
Have you ever noticed that someone armed with a sword alrways beats someone armed with anything else?
I must confess....I have seen Otaku no Video....at an anime club, even worse. But, thankgod, there were people there even worse than me. I met these three who basically had this sort of 'rocky horror picture show' thing going on, except with Excel. You know, everyone shouts at the screen, costumes, etc. At one point I was like, 'sorry, this is becoming so geeky that I, even I, am reaching my limit'.
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Wraith
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Austin, Texas, USA
Aug 1999
time: 23:37
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--"I liked Fruits Basket but my wife is nuts about it."
Let her know she can pre-order a 2006 Fruits Basket calendar ^_^
--"Did you say that there are still new eps of 'Berzerk' coming out?"
The manga is still ongoing. There's frequently rumors of another season of Berserk, but so far none of them have panned out. I wouldn't expect it to happen, but it would be nice.
--"I've been looking to get the live-action version of Jin-Roh..."
That reminds me, I have the two live-action movies Oshii did in the Jin-Roh universe. I need to watch those some time. You can get them in a set, along with another of his live-action films, but I don't think they've been sold seperately in the US.
--"I started making frequent use of the fast-forward button around the middle of disc 2, and the resulting absence of flashbacks really seemed to help out the series."
Heh. I be it did. ^_^ I still found the main character to be annoying and whiney, though.
Wraith
"Man fears the darkness, and so he scrapes away at the edges of it with fire."
-- Rei Ayanami ("Neon Genesis Evangelion")
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Wraith
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Austin, Texas, USA
Aug 1999
time: 23:37
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--"I started (and failed to finish) Saiyuki a few months ago"
Ah, that's another one I haven't bothered to see. I heard it wasn't that good, so I guess I heard right.
--"Hm. I'm still working off this thread."
Heh. Forgot about that one. It was a bit ago, wasn't it?
--"Twelve Kingdoms was also excellent, though the constant recaps were annoying (as was the unfinished nature of the series...) "
Well, the novels are still coming out in Japan. There's a possibility of more episodes, but I don't know how likely it is.
The recaps weren't that frequent, just one at the end of each story arc. They were set up to be pretty easy to skip. I've seen shows that have four recap episodes in a row (and less episodes than Twelve Kingdoms), so maybe that influences my opinion.
--"We weren't impressed with Record of Lodoss War"
It's not for everyone. I enjoy it mostly because of how much it resembles AD&D session, and I used to play that quite a bit.
--"though there seems to be entirely too many Significant Looks Between Characters."
Mostly an artifact of their shoestring animation budget, I suspect. They glare a fair bit in the manga, but the significant looks aren't overwhelming.
As for the opposition, I'm not sure when it happens, but they two run into a couple major obstacles along the way. If you do enjoy the show, check out the manga. The opposition is rather more... significant, shall we say, in the story arcs that haven't been animated. The Band of the Hawk story arc is necessary for understanding the characters, but there are much more major conflicts in the story.
If you're still looking for sci-fi titles, you might want to consider Bubblegum Crisis (not Crash or 2040). Or Figure 17. On the lighter side of things, there was a rerelease of Irresponsible Captain Tylor recently. The TV series was pretty funny (the OVAs are skippable).
Wraith
"Anchor, anchor... We need an anchor... Say Zel how much do you weigh?"
-- Lina Inverse ("Slayers Next")
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29-08-2005 01:19
I'll probably buy the second manga collection.
I just received Spirited Away and I'll watch it soon.
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