Myth's Anime Thread

[Mythopoet]

DH and I just watched the anime Another. This one surprised us, because it's a horror story and we normally don't like horror (except for the Lovecraftian kind). But it started out more as a supernatural mystery and slowly built up the horror elements until by the time the over-the-top gory horror ending came we were completely hooked anyway. It was a really well crafted story. We finished the 12 episodes in just two days because we couldn't stop watching.

We have also started watching The Mystic Archives of Dantalian which is set in a sort of turn-of-the-20th-century sort of setting and features artifacts called "Phantom Books" that are magical books filled with knowledge which is, more often than not, not meant to be in this world. The protagonists are a Lord who has inherited his uncle's mundane and mystic library and a "Biblioprincess" who has specialized knowledge and access to the Mystic Archives. It's very interesting so far.

And we've started The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya which I had seen people mentioning fairly often in various places so I got curious about it. It is infinitely more insane and awesome than I anticipated.

 

[wordwalker]

Another is well-done, alright. It's just so good at subtly plugging you into the school and placing quiet clues around, and lurching just for a few moments over to the latest shocker.

You might try From the New World too. It's a quiet fantasy future of village kids training to master their powers and only slowly finding out the flaws in the world. (Plus, just that first episode will see that you never look at cats the same way again. )

 

[Mythopoet]

Looks like I put From the New World on my crunchyroll queue already, but the description there is so short and vague that it wasn't a priority watch for me. But if it's anything like as compelling as Another I'll have to give it a shot sooner rather than later.

 

[Lace]

I love anime! I actually prefer to read the manga since they seem to be longer than what ever gets made into a series. Fruit's Basket was one such case. I will list the ones I can remember reading or watching thus far.

Black Buttler
Blue Exerist
FMA/FMAB
Earl and Fariey
Fairy Tale
Fruits Basket
Ouran High Host Club
The President's a Maid
MARS
Chiobits
Death Note
Rosario and Vampire
Wolf's Rain
And I have the entire collection of the Studio Ghibli films. They are by far my favorite! His work is amazing!!

Apologizes for botching any of the titles above.

 

[Mythopoet]

My daughter is a big fan of Fruits Basket. She's been reading the manga (just finished volume 6) before watching the corresponding anime episodes. Of course at some point she'll finish the anime and still have tons of manga left. I've already explained to her that the anime ends differently than the manga. She's looking forward to both versions. I got her a Kyo cat plushie for her birthday recently. Though I think she might prefer Yuki.

I'm thinking after she's done with Fruits Basket she might like Maid-sama. We loved that anime. It was fantastic and seemed all right content wise for a mature 11 year old.

 

[Steerpike]

And I have the entire collection of the Studio Ghibli films. They are by far my favorite! His work is amazing!!

Hey, I'm not the only one who likes Miyazaki!

 

[Mythopoet]

Hey, I'm not the only one who likes Miyazaki!

You kidding? My kids are raised on Miyazaki. We adore his movies and can't wait until we can get our hands on the newest.

 

[wordwalker]

Hey, I'm not the only one who likes Miyazaki!

To steal from Spider Robinson (at least, if there's anyone on this thread it applies to):

If you haven't seen Hayao Miyazaki's films, I envy you. You've got so much to look forward to.

 

[Steerpike]

Ah so plenty of people here like him. For some reason, another anime group I interact with gets all stupid about Miyazaki, to the point I can't take their opinions seriously.

My daughter watched Kiki about a million times.

 

[Mythopoet]

I have, more than once, called Miyazaki the greatest living story teller and I stand by that. He is easily my 2nd biggest writer influence, right after Tolkien and right before Frank Herbert.

And I'm a huge fan of Joe Hisaishi as well, the composer for all Miyazaki's movies. I just put together a playlist of music from Nausicaa, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky and Howl's Moving Castle to listen to while I write.

 

[Mythopoet]

Well, my husband and I are hooked on From the New World. This is the most amazing speculative story I have come across in a long time. The speculation revolves around what would happen to society if humanity began to rapidly develop telekinetic powers. It slowly builds up the questions and answers in a way that makes me think that if I watched it a second time, I'd find new layers that I didn't notice before. And the whole thing is built on some very strong yet subtle worldbuilding and truly well done characterization. This series really masters that delicate balance between exploring ad idea and telling a story about characters.

 

[wordwalker]

I know what you mean. That first episode was such a perfect, self-contained arc of oddness it left me gaping and almost hoping it was a one-shot story, for quitting while it was ahead. Then it kept going, and slowly working its way deeper...

Edit: Another I'd recommend is Red Garden. Girls fighting zombies after school is such a small part of the slow characterization you'll see there.

 

[Mythopoet]

Well, I accidentally got my daughter hooked on Naruto. I was trying to get her to try Bleach since the first four seasons in English were recently added to Amazon Prime. (I prefer Bleach in Japanese, but she doesn't like reading subtitles.) Naruto was also added recently and she asked me what it was about. I've never really watched Naruto, but I told her I thought it was about a clan of ninjas. She immediately perked up. I had no idea she was interested in ninjas so much. That was two days ago and last night she was already well into season 2. Well, it's certainly better than her watching stuff like iCarly, which is what she originally asked to watch.

 

[wordwalker]

Ahh, ninjas. It's amazing what a well-connected concept can do-- I gave a lecture on how to get in the heads of characters with paranormal backgrounds, and because I put "ninjas" in the title we spent half the period debating whether they were peasants or samurai, whether they used magic or super-genetics or pure tricks or what. Great fun, and I got a lot of use of of past Scribes threads.

Naruto is odd; it's half silly, two-thirds dramatic, and three-fourths failed mathematics. I never think how much fun that would be for actual kids, but it might be perfect.

 

[Mythopoet]

Well, I've been rewatching FMA:B and gleaning a lot from it. This second time around I'm appreciating the way the story is developing even more than the first time. The first time I was watching immediately after watching the first FMA which made it a little confusing every time things deviated because I still had images from the first series in my mind (I didn't know going into it that there were two versions or that the second one was the one that followed the manga, I was still pretty new to anime then).

I'm also watching it in English this time because I can do other stuff while watching it if I don't have to follow the subtitles. I still prefer the Japanese voice acting, but I'm getting used to the English voices. I'm not much of a fan of Vic Mignagna's work, he's very hit or miss for me. Romi Park was such a superior Edward Elric. Overall, the English voice acting is very "meh" for me. I'm not sure why it's so highly praised.

My husband and I are also watching Tsubasa Chronicles together. I'm still not sure what I think about it. Sometimes it's interesting, sometimes it feels contrived. I'm hoping it's not 50 episodes of the same basic formula with different set dressings over and over again.

 

[Lace]

So, the hubs and I discovered Sword Art Online and went on a Netflix binge! Sweet mother of anime I'm really digging it!

 

[wordwalker]

Take a look at Log Horizon too. Not as dramatic, but it actually involves the politics and economy of a game setting turned real. Hmm.

 

[Lace]

Sounds cool! I'll have to check it out! Thanks!

 

[Writeking]

I watched the first episode of Elfen Lied and while it didn't really bother me, I didn't find it compelling in any sense either. I got the feeling the whole opening sequence was meant to shock people into being interested, but it didn't work on me. *shrug*

If you haven't seen Elfen Lied the whole way through, I envy you. It was mostly nonstop gore and bloodshed, and I couldn't get into the story. It's not an anime I can bear to sit through more than once, and I've tried multiple times to watch a second viewing. I read somewhere on the internet they wanted to bring it to Adult Swim on Cartoon Network, but with all they would have to edit there would not have been a coherent plot left.

When it comes to Anime, there's only so much exploding limbs and decapitations I can take in one series, before I shut it off. I prefer series with a mix of humor and action. Series like Comic Party, Ninja Nonsense, and Sister Princess are short series that are easy to get into. Ranma 1/2, Dragonball , Inu-yahsa, Bleach, and The Slayers are some of my favorite longer series, I enjoy the fantasy elements they contain, and for me, they are a great source of inspiration for my writing.

 

[Mythopoet]

Yeah, we came across Sword Art Online first and just loved it to death. Then we came across Log Horizon and by the description on Crunchyroll it sounded just like SAO so I wasn't very interested. But it ended up having a totally different kind of story and style. I still like SAO more, but Log Horizon was very good.