The New Adventures of ILXor: The Animated Series Poll voting and campaigning thread

mission hill was not for us. was amused to learn it was not only a contemporary but initially a near-namesake of downtown, which i love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fI7zm7RXHs

This will be a top three on my best theme songs ever, love it to bits.

^^^massively otm

We watched Over The Garden Wall, and while it's not perfect, it looks amazing (as tt said, Ghibli-tastic), has a really cute and tasteful aesthetic (of a sort a Gen Y permachild like me wouldn't roll their eyes at - cues from Neutral Milk Hotel and Grim Fandango rather than anything more brash) and its world-building works pretty well - it all comes together sweetly. And that moment in the frogs episode is transcendent

Didn't remember the Jamie and the Magic Torch song being quite so minor key (after the Pete Townshend chords that kick it off):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeMMow_Itqw&t=33

oh well skip the first 33 seconds yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeMMow_Itqw

Any other recommendations for anime of a sort of strange or magical bent?

i completely agree with all the recommendations for A Place Further than the Universe - "a group of high school girls go to antarctica!" might sound like a terrible comedy or something but it's a surprisingly moving drama with plenty of great comedy too, and gorgeous animation. only 13 episodes too!

it's hard to think of what western series i still care about at all though - probably throwing Pingu a vote out of childhood nostalgia, and certainly Avatar & Korra are quite good, and SGCTC of course but that's about it. it's hard to feel much nostalgia for any of the 00s/90s stuff around when i was a child except for Avatar which stands out as by far the best from then. maybe Ed, Edd & Eddy, it was endearingly weird at times but that's about it as far as the children's cartoon sitcoms go.

i was always most into the more plot/adventure oriented anime (or the western attempts at imitation) like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh (DBZ was always too confusing for me though, always just endless fights so I never knew what was happening when I did see it) but i wouldn't hold those up as at all worthwhile though Yu-Gi-Oh occasionally did take its already goofy premise to some seriously weird places. the original dub of One Piece that i grew up with was not good at all in its very strange attempt to turn it from a show for teens to a show for kids but it did get me interested enough to eventually get into the manga which is still one of the best comics there is - hopefully it will finish within the next decade.

Thank you! Already completely sold on the basis of "a group of high school girls go to antarctica!", but I'll try the others too.

I *love* that Fullmetal Alchemist theme posted upthread. This will make it onto both of my ballots for sure:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzV9ug9BQds

bouncing back to Ren and Stimpy: that show was immensely influential on me when i started watching it in high school. I can still recite the "oh my beloved ice cream bar" routine from memory. The Mad Magazine style chicken fat, the Bill Wray backgrounds, the twisted relationships and absorption in the ugly and subversive all remain a powerful lure but John K's real life ugliness certainly complicates matters. I'm intending to vote, with some misgivings, for R&S in this poll with the understanding that while the work not only retains but is founded on some of that taint, it is the product of many voices and remains among my favorite cartoons.
fuck the Spike TV revival though, that shit was vile.

a few more '10s anime i really like and will be voting for:

Non Non Biyori - slice-of-life comedy in a rural farming village, with lots of blissed out pastoral still shots. probably my favorite anime. you'll know whether you're on board or bored from the first episode.

Hyouka - mystery/character drama series about a high school club solving small-stakes mysteries. this is the best looking show in KyoAni's already impressive catalog imo, it's really expressive.

Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun - girl approaches guy she likes only to find out that he's secretly a shoujo (girls') manga artist and accidentally ends up as his manga assistant instead of girlfriend. fun romcom that's much more on the comedy than romance end of the spectrum.

apparently i have some googling to do re: John K/Ren and Stimpy. was def planning on having it on my ballot, but far down enough that nothing is set in stone.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/arianelange/john-kricfalusi-ren-stimpy-underage-sexual-abuse

the pilot for Mission Hill:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0ZMw4y9rV0

i love the colour palette they use so much.

monthly girls' nozaki-kun is indeed very funny though idk how well how much it parodies shoujo manga tropes would work for someone who isn't familiar with those at all. probably not too hard to understand

Acting like those first couple seasons of R&S are not hugely influential and also really funny seems off, to me.

I’m sure all those anime guys are squeaky clean lol

Well I mean the creator of Ruruoni Kenshin got a slap on the wrist for possessing child porn last year but I’m fping you for “anime guys”

First ballot is submitted, btw!

Not mine!

Reminder that if you are submitting a theme nomination for an anime that ran multiple seasons please check if it had more than one OP during its run and make sure you identify the one you mean; American airings for some shows stuck to a single OP as opposed to using all the originals. As with all ambiguities, I'll do my best but reserve the right to give up.

i am prob not voting in the theme song poll but every single gundam wing title song was a bop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYe_-oFkMaI

though my favorite ("white reflection") is from the movie endless waltz so i don't think it counts for this poll

Yeah themes should be from works that otherwise meet the main poll criteria.

i dunno what john k has been up to lately outside of finally releasing this:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10533350/?ref_=tt_urv

He put a lengthy and deeply cringeworthy response on Facebook which is captured here:
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/ren-stimpy-creator-john-kricfalusis-apology-triggers-backlash-from-victims-158358.html

Are there a lot of women w lead roles in the creation of anime? Serious question.

Xp

Are end title themes allowed? Especially since some series have no opening theme or perfunctory 5 second opening sequences.

Like it'd be a shame for FLCL not to qualify.

omfg what is this Chapi Chapo stuff, and what is the comedown like :D

amazing

Are there a lot of women w lead roles in the creation of anime? Serious question.

Xp

― Οὖτις, Monday, August 12, 2019 1:41 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't know I just felt like fping you for the generalization which is faintly smacks of japan is fucked up!

Are end title themes allowed? Especially since some series have no opening theme or perfunctory 5 second opening sequences.

― Coelacanth Green (Leee), Monday, August 12, 2019 1:43 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah why not

Five episodes into A Place Further Than the Universe - it's lovely so far! Looking forward to the trip developing.

Never heard of Chapi Chapo until half an hour ago, but it has a disarming style of stop motion movement (lots of jump cuts) and is characterised by almost incessant laughter and the best theme tune ever. Also rendered in a lovely cubist setting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R6EB69M2jA

xp lots of women writers and artists, not a ton of directors but more than there used to be in the 90s/00s. the aforementioned A Place Further than the Universe was directed by a woman, as were K-On and Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun from our nominations list, dunno if there are any others on there.

Chapi Chapo theme is immortal; also by noted film composer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François_de_Roubaix

Chapi Chapo is a freakin' delight, is what it is.

I also posted this in the nominations thread, but you really can't go wrong sifting through the animated shorts they ran on Pinwheel: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinwheel_(TV_series)

Even some American shows have multiple theme songs. I specified the original theme song for Garfield on my ballot because the other one is eh, whereas for Rocko's Modern Life, both theme songs are good (and similar) and I didn't feel like specifying. Might be easiest to just lump all theme songs together under the one show

Theme songs with the same words and melody but a new arrangement (eg Steven Universe) are the same for our purposes.

I love rules.

idk if this should go here since i missed the nominations thread, but here are some 00s/10s anime that i haven't seen mentioned that are pretty great:

uchouten kazoku (eccentric family): this is my pick for anime of a magical bent. it's a super fun show - creatures from japanese folklore coexist with humans in modern-day kyoto, focuses on a family of tanuki dealing with guilt and grief in a really delightfully drawn world operating by its own strange logic. if you've seen tatami galaxy or the night is short, walk on girl, this is by the same writer and it feels of a piece, maybe set in the same universe.

silver spoon: fullmetal alchemist writer does a coming-of-age story set in an agricultural high school. its a very chill slice-of-life that also touches lightly on the economic realities of japanese farmers. kinda feels like it could be some govt-sponsored propaganda to encourage urban youth to repopulate the countryside but in a good way lol

kids on the slope: cowboy bebop/samurai champloo director made an anime set in the 60s about jazz and friendship!

from the new world: dystopian sci-fi set in the future where a small percentage of the population has developed psychic abilities in 2013, totally restructuring human society. an underclass of "monster rats" serves humans, kids discover a secret and face the consequences as adults.

dennou coil: spooky digimon. kids in the near future live in a world where AR tech is used in everyday life. they hang out, mess around at the margins of the code, confront death, and risk losing their souls. honestly better than it sounds, came out in 2007 so it predates black mirror. it has a really interesting tone that i've never really seen done anywhere else before. starts off like a children's show but then starts drifting towards horror. mitsuo iso, who did key animation for neon genesis evangelion and early ghibli, directed this.

princess jellyfish: unemployed neurotic obsessive nerdy women try to grow up and save their boarding house from redevelopment with the help of a stylish, crossdressing manic pixie dream boy (coded cis-male imo, but it's been a while so i may be wrong)

paradise kiss: high-achieving girl feels aimless until she starts hanging out with fashion design kids and starts figuring out what she wants from life. nice soundtrack that happens to include lol franz ferdinand but it works. at a key moment in the show, this shoegazey song starts playing and it's perfect. a couple of decently portrayed overtly queer characters too iirc, esp for its time

march comes in like a lion: teen shogi (japanese chess) prodigy deals with depression, learns how to make friends/maintain relationships with other humans, and eats a lot of delicious food

yona of the dawn: what if there was a shounen (boys' action/adventure) anime but with a female lead?? swords, magic, and dragons

the lost village: horror comedy about trauma that features a giant deranged penguin. all of the characters go by their online handle irl and are terrible. thought this was some stupid, messy fun, but ymmv

kino's journey (2003): a mysterious girl and her talking motorcycle wander a world inspired by calvino's invisible cities. there's a remake too but idk anything about it

natsume yuujinchou: gentle boy who sees spirits tries to help them and slowly opens his heart, mushishi vibes

humanity has declined: post-apocalyptic dark comedy where a girl tries to mediate between humans and fairies

hyouge mono: set in the era of the warring states, this one's a comedy about a man obsessed with tea ceremony/wabi-sabi/art

shouwa genroku rakugo shinjuu: traditional comedic storytellers (rakugoka) try to make it in the 1930s through the 1990s

gankutsuou: sci-fi take on the count of monte cristo + mecha. visually arresting

most of these are like 12-24 eps long.

After doing some digging, I'm going to give nu-She-Ra another go; I watched the first season and didn't care too much to go on, but apparently it gets much better by S2?

I’ve only caught eps here and there when my kids are watching it but it seems v high quality and interesting the stuff I’ve seen

xp great list thanks, i haven't seen any of those & only a few were on my radar already

also Barakamon is one more of my anime favs that i missed in my last post - hotshot calligraphy artist gets sent off to live in a small island village after a public meltdown, has to learn how to get along with people in a close-knit community while finding new inspiration for his art. really nice little slice-of-life character piece.

Would we be better off with a 'recommend me some anime' thread? I don't think any of it's going to bother the poll much with a few exceptions (Eva, Cowboy Bebop, possibly Gatchaman if people feel more bound to the 'saturday morning cartoons'?)

After doing some digging, I'm going to give nu-She-Ra another go; I watched the first season and didn't care too much to go on, but apparently it gets much better by S2?

Also, besides Steven Universe it's by far the queerest American kids' cartoon I've ever seen. There's a few lesbian romances going on that are incredibly obvious if not spelled out as such, and Bow is also explicitly to have two dads who are in a loving long-term relationship.

"Bow is also explicitly shown to have two dads"

steven universe is worth sticking w/ imo.

I most definitely is, I would argue SU is the best TV series of this decade, cartoon or live-actiom. But the first season starts really slow, and the first half of it is mostly just establishing the protagonists and the setting (though there are some hints dropped that will pay out later). The big story arc that defines the rest of the series doesn't kick in until the "Mirror Gem"/"Ocean Gem" two-parter, and the magnitude of the story is only properly revealed in the season 1 finale, which is amazing. So if you're undecided, I'd recommend trying to continue until the end of the first season. If the finale doesn't work for you, the rest of the series won't either, but if it does work, you're probably hooked alredy.

feel like i should rewatch some of my old adult swim faves for this like Sealab and Harvey Birdman but also don't want to find out that they're not funny anymore

i wanted to like steven universe and it's certainly something i would have liked to have had as a child, but it can be too corny at times for me and the overall morals of it are a mess - "it's possible to talk to and work things out with your enemies" is admirable enough for a kids show but when it extends that to even the main villains who lead a genocidal alien empire it doesn't really land at all

Harvey Birdman and Sealab are both still pretty funny, Sealab maybe less pleasant overall, and it falls off pretty hard.

luckily i am certain that space ghost coast to coast still holds up

i would love to watch avatar before i file my ballot but i'm pretty sure i won't have time