Anime for people who hate anime

I'm currently watching through Monster, all of which is up on Youtube (in my part of the world at least); it's a slow burn but I'm enjoying it. More or less a straight-up crime thriller, there'a a few cliches but it's written well.

I'm a bit surprised that it seems to be the only Naoki Urusawa series that's been adapted into anime.

oh yeah megazone 23 and cyber city oedo 808 are rad

excel saga is SO funny and wacky and i was #blessed enough to wind up with a subtitle track that has pop-up-video style explanations of all of the obscure references, which has added to my appreciateion of it

if you are down w torrenting, nyaa dot si is an incredibly comprehensive resource, sometimes TOO comprehensive (like way too many rips of the same thing), they also skew towards placebo-level encoding (like FLAC audio and some insanely high video bitrate) which can be annoying

the most annoying anime release group thing i've come across is where they use an obscure feature in MKV that isn't really widely supported to chop off the intros and outros into their own files to save space

I'm largely anime ignorant, but are Ghost In the Shell and Akira still considered the gold standard of classic anime? I need a new thing to obsess over to distract myself from the end of civilization and am looking for entertaining diversions to stave off total despair

from a western perspective they definitely are still considered god tier

mamoru oshii's best work is unparalleled in anime not to mention cinema

ghost in the shell is among that best work

Haven't seen the anime for Monster but the manga is one of my favorites. Love Urasawa.
GITS probably holds up? Akira is amazing landmark animation but as a film it's always been kinda rough - bear in mind the manga was still going when they made the movie so it ends strangely.

I would say Ghost in the Shell and Akira are god-tier but they are not the entire god tier, I would also throw in like Spirited Away and probably a Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue? Millennium Actress?)

millennium actress is the best satoshi kon by a mile imo

check out Metropolis as well if u haven't seen it -- based on a manga from 1949 by Osamu Tezuka, it's directed by Rintaro and written by the director of Akira.

the last episode of gunbuster is a work of art

it's only like 6 eps, right? I really should rewatch it. Or maybe just watch Diebuster. My understanding is that E1 of Gunbuster is a parody of, like, sports anime? but sadly the context is lost on me :(

my kids have gotten into anime in a big way, usually shitty high school stories like haikyu

they like attack on titan too, which is..... HORRIFIC

they also like my hero academia, and they want me to subscribe to crunchyroll, but the video quality on crunchyroll is SO BAD and almost nothing is dubbed either

the crunchyroll player defaults to 480p if you aren't subscribed but you can tick it up to 1080p even without a subscription iirc

they only paywall new/currently airing shows for the most part

Lol I liked the first series of attack on Titan, never watched the rest. Series loves its gore though.

the subs are an issue for them - just a little too much work.

My understanding is that E1 of Gunbuster is a parody of, like, sports anime? but sadly the context is lost on me :(

it kinda starts out as like a light parody of mecha/school anime but then turns into something incredible about halfway through. 6 episodes so it's an easy watch

they are now super into 'Food Wars'

haikyuu to attack on titan to food wars is quite the downward slide

lol

help me help them, they have no taste and no filter

i need to finish watching food wars. love the orgasmic depictions of flavor

yeah that's their favourite part :)

Mob Psycho 100 is the best recent shonen action series imo, but really i have no clue what teens might like, i only watch boring adult anime

have we talked about DoroHeDoro yet? if not, we really need to

my kids aren't teens yet - frankly i find attack on titan too gruesome for them but they claim it doesn't bother them

if Polar Bear's Cafe has a dub, see if they like that? they might find it really boring tho

xp dorohedoro is cool but obv doesn't belong in the middle of a discussion about anime for kids lol

Will watch Ghost in the Shell someday, as a treat.

Little Witch Academia is tame enough for kids but still entertaining as an adult

hah sorry I didn't know we were talking about kids anime but still.. incredible mind melting stuff

the manga art is really good and detailed in ways that can't be replicated in tv animation but they still did a great job with the setting/backgrounds and overall execution

that's re: dorohedoro i mean

I liked it but couldn’t figure out if the objectification of its women characters was so grotesque as to constitute a comment on the theme or really just unfortunate.

that’s how i feel about food wars

but everything else about it i find amazingly bonkers. my kids now both want to actually create dishes in real life that my wife and i are to judge. i really hope they don’t want us to cosplay.

thats really sweet :)

the last episode of gunbuster is a work of art

― diamonddave85​​ (diamonddave85), Sunday, June 21, 2020 7:37 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's only like 6 eps, right? I really should rewatch it. Or maybe just watch Diebuster. My understanding is that E1 of Gunbuster is a parody of, like, sports anime? but sadly the context is lost on me :(

― vision joanna newsom (Stevie D(eux)), Sunday, June 21, 2020 10:46 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

i’m rewatching gunbuster right now bc of this exchange! i’ve owned the dvds for at least a decade but somehow had only watched them once? i had forgotten almost everything about this incredible show, including all the proto-evangelion echoes (profound dedication to pseudoscientific babble, screwed up father figure who almost never takes off his sunglasses, arrogant german redhead who’s preternaturally good at piloting robots)

the alien spaceship design is dazzling, just these overgrown organic horrors floating through space. feels really influenced by anno’s time working with miyazaki (which, incidentally, the main character has a nausicaa poster in her room)

maybe i should finally watch all of nadia after this

gunbuster overall feels like a picture of anno before he realized how depressed he was, or a version of eva that’s not so psychedelically fucked up and is instead pared down to pure emotion

Brad I am LIVING for your Gunbuster rewatch. Plz lmk if you watch Diebuster and if it’s any good.

“Gunbustaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”

diebuster is good in a 'solid sequel that lives in the shadow of the original' sort of way iirc

at first i was like "diebuster isn't directed by anno? no thanks" but it's kazuya tsurumaki of flcl so i'll prob watch it

did anyone watch those flcl sequels, are they any good

i haven't bc no one seemed to like them. they're not even made by ex-gainax folks for the most part afaik so its a sequel in name only

I was going to post various articles on various threads but screw it, just skim the first few pages of this blog for anything that catches your interest. Includes some podcast discussion of Gunbuster and Diebuster.
https://schoolgirlmilkycrisis.com/

I've been reading Jonathan Clements' articles since last summer when I discovered his entries on china and japan on the Science Fiction Encyclopedia but he's a general historian of Japan, China, Finland; he writes 2000AD novels; he writes lots about anime, he translates and does voice acting; probably does a bunch of other things I've forgotten.
I tore my hair out at some of the copyright/translation and secondhand market practices of japan and there's lot of good stuff to scroll through. Old Finnish films.