The all things Anime related thread.

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Watched Laputa on BD this afternoon ... and it looks, and sounds, very very good. Wouldn't say it was one of my favourite Ghibli films but it's still and enjoyable watch. Given the amount of time between the JP release and this I'm hoping that we get Whisper of the Heart at the end of the year (due out in JP in July) as that is one of my favourite Ghibli's.

Also watched the first disk of Chobits on BD. It's a nice series but I'm not seeing much of an improvement, if any, from the BD release over the the DVD release being upscaled by the BD player ...
 
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memyselfandi said:
Also watched the first disk of Chobits on BD. It's a nice series but I'm not seeing much of an improvement, if any, from the BD release over the the DVD release being upscaled by the BD player ...
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I have to ask, was it re-framed or is it still in 4:3 format with borders either side? And which version did you buy? Are they all the same on BD?
 
Laputa is very nicely done on blu, although they still haven't subbed the ending song :(
It's nice that's it's a dual format one as well, I may be able to give my old DVD's away :)

Re Chobits, isn't the blu-ray just a well done upscale from the original materials, rather than natively HD?
 
Is there any real reason why the more recent, and better looking Ghibli films arent't out on Blu Ray yet? I'd have thought we'd have seen the likes of Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle by now.

Just seems a bit odd to me that we get the older stuff like Nausicaa, Laputa and My Neighbours The Yamada's first (not that I'm complaining).
 
I think it's down to which ones are done in Japan, with them slowly going through the popular/back catalogue first as we've had the latest ghibli film on blu-ray.
I suspect the HD rights for the stuff the Japanes haven't got yet, won't be released until the Japanese have a version (to protect the Japanese market), it's also much more expensive for say Optimum to do a HD transfer themselves, than to get a digital HD master they can use from the Japanese.
Madman had major problems when they tried to do a new master for Spirited Away to correct the red tint the Japanese DVD's had - iirc they sourced 3 separate copies of the film print from different countries but none of them were suitable for a good transfer, whilst the Japanese will generally have access to first generation film or at worst the ability to use a proper archive version of the original materials (as opposed to one that has been used potentially hundreds of times in theatre projectors that may not have been well maintained). It also lets them take advantage of any remastering the Japanese have done for their own domestic releases.
 
robgmun said:
I have to ask, was it re-framed or is it still in 4:3 format with borders either side? And which version did you buy? Are they all the same on BD?
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Not quite sure what you mean by this ... my MVM UK DVD thinpak boxset release states its anamorphic widescreen 16:9 and it displays as such with no black borders automatically the same as the BD release. As far as I am aware there is only one western release of Chobits on BD (Funimation Anime Classics).

What is on-screen at the beginning of episode 9 does not appear to be significantly different so I wouldn't expect it to have been hacked around to much.

Werewolf said:
Laputa is very nicely done on blu, although they still haven't subbed the ending song :(
It's nice that's it's a dual format one as well, I may be able to give my old DVD's away :)

Re Chobits, isn't the blu-ray just a well done upscale from the original materials, rather than natively HD?
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Yep, it's an upscale ... like I said though it's an "ok", to me, upscale and not much of an improvement, if any, over the DVD release upscaled at playback time as the DVD image quality was pretty good.

Demoniser said:
Is there any real reason why the more recent, and better looking Ghibli films arent't out on Blu Ray yet? I'd have thought we'd have seen the likes of Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle by now.

Just seems a bit odd to me that we get the older stuff like Nausicaa, Laputa and My Neighbours The Yamada's first (not that I'm complaining).
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As Werewolf says, it's down to what's been released on BD in Japan. We seem, so far, to be getting the back catalogue titles on BD about 5-6 months after them so we won't likely see Spirited Away or Howl until they have been released on BD there.

I think that we may well see Whisper of the Heart, following this logic, at the end of the year and we may well also see Arietty as well at the end of this year, beginning of next ... but that may well be delayed as whilst wikipedia lists August for the films release over here the US is listed as Feb 2012 which may effect things ...
 
Finished watching Bakuman earlier this evening. Series is about two final year middle schoolers who want to write manga together and follows them over the next several years as they attempt to get published / serialised. The series manages to avoid the easy way out of involving doujinshi and concentrates on the characters attempts to get their work published. Lots of well known series crop up at times through out which would probably make licensing the series very difficult. The series does come to an end of a plot arc but has plenty of ongoing elements which prime it for a second season (to come).

I was quite surprised by the series. It has a reasonable compact cast and despite the subject being quite dry the series was involving and you ended up rooting for the main characters. The only criticism I'd have at the moment is that there are to many "nice" characters ... characters who when you first see them you think ... ah, a nemesis appears ... but whilst they are a rival things don't tend to turn nasty that much ....
 
I quite enjoyed Bakuman myself as well. It is essentially a feel good type of series so no surprise there are many nice characters in it. This is also by the same creator of Death Note as well, so you can definitely see a big theme switch from these two projects.
 
The other thing I watched at the weekend was Sentai's double feature release of Coffee Samurai and Hoshizora Kiseki.

Coffee Samurai is about the love of a girl and a coffee vending machine .... the vending machine is a reincarnated samurai warrior who wanted to be reborn with a metal body. He isn't normal coffee machine and can turn into a person for short periods of time.

Hoshizora Kiseki is about a girl who has been looking at things falling down from space who meets a boy who spends all of his time wearing a space suit.

This is sold as being from the same studio as Voices of a Distant Star and A Place Promised in Our Early Days ... neither OVA is anywhere near as good as these. Personally I didn't think much of Coffee Samurai, the story wasn't very good and the animation was not good at all at times. Hoshizora Kiseki was better, the animation was better and the storing was more interesting, but I wouldn't say that it was good compared with a lot of other OVAs they could have put out. With both series you just didn't care at all about the characters and with the first one in particular I ended up looking forward to it being over (which can't be good with a 30 minute OVA).
 
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Watching Dragon Crisis at the moment and enjoying it more then most people it seems. It's inoffensive and scratches that romance-magical girl inch that i've been having for a while, it's pretty much my fav genre in the anime world (which Spice&Wolf is the best of the lot) and now that watched all the big ones from the past they're thin on the ground.

Any decent romance-magical girl ones from the past 12 months? Summer is approching and this is when i seem to plough through most of my anime when most TV series take there summer break

I also have High School of the Dead lined up
 
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To be honest, whilst I enjoyed the series the Unlimited Blade Works film did nothing for me so I'll remain sceptical over how much I'll like this new one ... (*)


(*) I'm not a gamer so my only contact with the story is the anime series which will have affected how much I enjoyed the UBW film (as discussed earlier in the thread).
 
Just finished watching Dragon Crisis and pleasantly surprised that it had some form of proper ending! How rare is that for an anime!
 
edit:based off Andis last response not Robs

See I didnt mind the film as I guess you could say Im mildly OCD with series/concepts that interest me, and despite not being a massive fan of FSN I did end up reading a load of info on it after finishing the series what must be a year or so ago.
As some of the info I read went onto the subject of the original material, the routes etc, even though I wasn't that clued up,especially by the time the film arrived, I did at least have a rough idea of what UBW represented. The film was tolerable as long as you treated it as an action-focused condensation of an alternate storyline.

That aside, as someone who loves a bit of depth and strong characters I think, by the very nature of the beast, VN adaptations kinda suffer in translation unless they get enough runtime and Im not a major fan of FSN. Given the outcome is predetermined, I find myself finding it hard to get excited about Zero.

I'd be much more interested if it'd been S&W or FMP 3 haha

@Rob - Hahah, yeah it can be rare for some sort of ending, rather than a 'To (maybe) be continued...' style ending. The series wasn't terrible, and it was unoffensive, I just think it could have probably done a lot more with the premise than it did, but then perhaps decided not to to allow it to wrap itself up more :)
 
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Be interesting to see how the Fate prequel will turn out since it will be the previous war, and then there's the Emiya/Einzbern connection too.

Really enjoying Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko at the moment and so far this season, it has got to be one of the most cute, funny and randomly weird shows there is. I fanyone had an Aunt like Meme-san, I'd think you'd go crazy easily. ;)
 
Phatjayunoi said:
Be interesting to see how the Fate prequel will turn out since it will be the previous war, and then there's the Emiya/Einzbern connection too.

Really enjoying Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko at the moment and so far this season, it has got to be one of the most cute, funny and randomly weird shows there is. I fanyone had an Aunt like Meme-san, I'd think you'd go crazy easily. ;)
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Yes, Denpa is one of the better series this season ... although I'd say that Meme-san isn't the only off the wall female character in it :)

I'm finding that there are several series that I am really enjoying this season ....

Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko
Ano Hana
Hanasaku Iroha
A Channel
A Bridge to the Starry Skies
 
I was reading an article earlier on a survey in Japan of 4000 otaku where they asked them what the best anime of the last decade (2001-2010) were.

The top 50 list of what they came up with was as follows:

1. Angel Beats!
2. Bakemonogatari
3. Clannad
4. K-ON!
5. Code Geass
6. A Certain Magical Index
7. Toradora!
8. Haruhi
9. Gintama
10. A Certain Scientific Railgun
11. Ore no Imouto
12. Full Metal Alchemist
13. Durarara!!
14. Gundam Seed
15. Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha
16. GitS: Stand Alone Complex
17. Darker Than Black
18. Strike Witches
19. A__a The Animation
20. Working!!
21. Eureka Seven
22. Kamichu!
23. Lucky Star
24. Black Lagoon
25. Planetes
26. Hidamari Sketch
27. Air
28. Mushishi
29. Hayate no Gotoku!
30. Elfen Lied
31. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
32. Scried
33. Fafner in the Azure
34. Baccano
35. Shakugan no Shana
36. Bleach
37. Gun x Sword
38. Slam Dunk
39. Honey and Clover
40. Basilisk
41. Aoi Hana
42. Cowbop Bebop (Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door)
43. Naruto
44. Jewelpet Tinkle
45. Sousei no Aquarion
46. Bamboo Blade
47. Inuyasha
48. Solty Rei
49. Zipang
50. Sky Girls

So, without arguing about what should be listed but isn't (I'm looking at you Alex as I see Spice and Wolf isn't on there :)) how many of the list have you seen/not seen.

I'm going with not seen as it's shorter (:)) ...

9. Gintama
28. Mushishi
32. Scried
36. Bleach (only seen first 2 series)
37. Gun x Sword
38. Slam Dunk
40. Basilisk
43. Naruto (only seen first 3 series)
44. Jewelpet Tinkle
47. Inuyasha
49. Zipang

Not bad really .... I think the vast majority of what I haven't seen on the list is more by concious choice rather than just missing them.
 
Out of that list I have seen:

1. Angel Beats!
3. Clannad
4. K-ON!
7. Toradora!
20. Working!!
27. Air

So a lot of the top ones, though I must say I'm surprised Angel Beats! was higher than Clannad really.

Just finished the girl who leapt through space. It was quite good in the end, nice watchable series. I have just started watching Eden of the East, already had to watch the first 3ep's as it has sucked me in that much!
 
memyselfandi said:
9. Gintama
15. Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha
22. Kamichu!
26. Hidamari Sketch
28. Mushishi
31. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
32. Scried
36. Bleach
37. Gun x Sword
38. Slam Dunk
40. Basilisk
42. Cowbop Bebop (Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door)
44. Jewelpet Tinkle
45. Sousei no Aquarion
47. Inuyasha
49. Zipang
50. Sky Girls

Mmm i don't think I'm really missing out, although i do want to watch Hidamari Sketch sometime.
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