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Let's talk about Anime!
FLCL is by the same director (EDIT: I was wrong, they aren't) and every bit as crazy. It's an energetic tale of adolescence with all kinds of weird, unsuble symbolysm in a very Japanese vein and the animation is great, it has dozens of fun moments of crazyness that are rare in Japanese animation.
FLCL is perhaps one of the best animes I've seen. I think the 3 levels that its plot works on (straight story, coming-of-age-tale, and homage to anime in general) really does fire on all cylinders. On top of that it all takes place in a dense 6-episode block. They finally released it as a single disc you can find on Amazon.
In the end, though, it's enough of a riff on Blade Runner to feel vaguely familiar and thus derivative. The recent series, Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex, on the other hand, is a good police procedural with a decent lightweight commentary on "cogs in the machine of society" subtext (were not talking Fritz Lang's Metropolis here, but it's not so heavyhanded as it could be....)
I don't really think Ghost in the Shell is derivative of Blade Runner. Sure both attempt to answer the question of what makes someone "human" and it part of that having a soul of sorts. But I think they have vastly different approaches to that. Blade Runner is a strong product of the 80's where robots were "scary", but Ghost was born during a time of the internet and talk of uploading your consciousness. This is a wholly different crisis than Blade Runner considers. I think its easier to argue The Matrix is derivative of Ghost in the Shell.
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I've also wondered whether Android's Eliza's Toy Box got its name from the Space Debris collection station in Planetes. Japanese anime fantasy is unique. I remember playing the original Final Fantasy thinking what the f*ck IS this? It does kind of grow on you though.
Speaking of anime...Barnes might appreciate it as the original source of tentacle porn.
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Ninja Scrolls (the OVA not the series; saw it first when it was Wind Ninja Chronicles - at least the VHS said so).
Raven Tengu something
Vampire Hunter D
Fist of the North Star (very dated now)
Akira
Record of Lodoss War (was into D&D back then)
Bastard (6 episodes)
Guyver (much longer than 6 episodes but the early stuff was good)
Elementals (I think it was called this, maybe The Elementals or Elementalis...)
Demon City Sinjuku
Golgo 13
Crying Freeman (the first episode or three)
Grave of the Fireflies
Ghost in the Shell
The Slayers (first series arc - very funny stuff)
and many more that I have forgotten as my dvds are in storage or I have not found them on dvd. Most of these I saw when you could only get them bootlegged on VHS with fansubs (fan created subtitles in case you didn't know).
It was exciting times back then, discovering all these cool, crazy cartoons. Sure I saw hentai stuff, but I also saw many other interesting themes.
I also remember going into the local Blockbuster as anime started to grow in popularity and you'd see they devoted one shelf to anime and as the weeks went by more and more space was devoted until they had a whole section.
My favorite story is seeing a copy of Legend of the Overfiend (Uristokodoje) (way spelled wrong) in the children's section and having to bring it up to one of the employees and telling them this is NOT for children.
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I recall that Uritsukodoje roughly translates to "The Wandering Kid", but I certainly don't remember if that has any story context.
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hotseatgames wrote: haha! That is too funny. Definitely not for kids. I saw that one way back. We were pretty amazed at what we were watching...
I recall that Uritsukodoje roughly translates to "The Wandering Kid", but I certainly don't remember if that has any story context.
DOn't know the direct translation (you could be right) but it was put in the theaters and on dvds with Legend of the Overfiend.
As for the Wandering Kid, I saw a movie called The Adventuring Kid or maybe it was called Wandering Kid that was similar in vein (hehe) to Legend of the Overfiend - not hentai, but porn-ish. I think they even had a vaginal POV of coitus.
Back then this was something so new to us that we saw all that we could, no matter how crazy it was.
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hotseatgames wrote: Hmm... well maybe I'm remembering it incorrectly, or maybe Wandering Kid was one of the sequels. Yes, there are more than one Overfiend movie, and yes I think I saw at least 2 of them. I'm not proud.
The second one had the notorious Nazi Rape Machine. Glad I missed that.
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hotseatgames wrote: Hmm... well maybe I'm remembering it incorrectly, or maybe Wandering Kid was one of the sequels. Yes, there are more than one Overfiend movie, and yes I think I saw at least 2 of them. I'm not proud.
Actually, you are right, there was more than one. I forgot about that. Went to wiki and found:
"Birth of the Overfiend" (January 21, 1987)
"Curse of the Overfiend" (March 21, 1988)
"Final Inferno" (April 10, 1989)
Maybe those are the three parts we are talking about.
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Project A-ko
Bubblegum Crisis
Tank Squad (or something with Tank -Tank Dominion?)
Dirty Pair
Escaflowne (a full blown series)
Wicked City
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ZMan wrote: Wicked City
I forgot about that one. Watched it with my girlfriend, and remember her commenting halfway through, "There is an awful lot of rape in this anime."
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bioball wrote: I don't really think Ghost in the Shell is derivative of Blade Runner. Sure both attempt to answer the question of what makes someone "human" and it part of that having a soul of sorts. But I think they have vastly different approaches to that. Blade Runner is a strong product of the 80's where robots were "scary", but Ghost was born during a time of the internet and talk of uploading your consciousness. This is a wholly different crisis than Blade Runner considers. I think its easier to argue The Matrix is derivative of Ghost in the Shell.
Yea, I'd agree with that. The "What is human" question is what kind of stuck in my head...and I've come to hate "The Matrix as Cultural Touchstone" so much that it just never comes to mind at all. But you're definitely right.
Z-Man also rattles off a bunch of very, very accessible series for most folks. I'm a little surprised when I see FLCL and a few others pop up on here because the inescapable pedophilia [not talking chicks in school-girl outfits; talkin' daddy actively lusting after 10th grade girls] element in 'em can be pretty blatant. I know it's usually part of some "meta-" element to the thing, but it ain't exactly for the casual viewer.
A series that kind of took me by surprise in that way was Black Butler. It certainly had that "beautiful men with very tender attitudes toward each other" vibe to it, but it was a pretty interesting story. Until the last episode, when the whole thing suddenly took a very strong pedo-predator turn. It was kind of implied, not shown; but apparently the 2nd series was much, much more along the lines of a "chickenhawk" relationship. Very odd dynamic; shame though as the series was both interesting and fairly generally accessible up until the end.
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Shellhead wrote:
hotseatgames wrote: Hmm... well maybe I'm remembering it incorrectly, or maybe Wandering Kid was one of the sequels. Yes, there are more than one Overfiend movie, and yes I think I saw at least 2 of them. I'm not proud.
The second one had the notorious Nazi Rape Machine. Glad I missed that.
I saw that one and thought, "What the fuck am I watching? Who actually gets aroused by this, if anyone?"
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ZMan wrote: Other titles I remember:
Project A-ko
Bubblegum Crisis
Tank Squad (or something with Tank -Tank Dominion?)
Dirty Pair
Escaflowne (a full blown series)
Wicked City
Dominion: Tank Police. Where Anipuma and Unipuma do a striptease in front of the regular cops to a song sounding frighteningly familiar to "Relax", and then pulling out assault rifles out of *ahem* somewhere and blasting the place up. Fucking hysterical.
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I had previously thought stuff was OK, but apart from Robotech this was the first thing that I loved. The plot in Appleseed is derivative and the dialogue is abysmal, but there is something very John Woo about the action scenes and I love them to bits.
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