Many Pieces... (See what I did there?) (-;
Thanks for the recommendations, guys; I'm adding the new ones to my list.
@Walpknut: I've seen a few eps of Serial Experiments Lain; the series definitely intrigued me. Just haven't made the time yet to continue it. The rest of your series list are all on my top faves list, except I need to re-watch Paranoia Agent; haven't seen that since it left Adult Swim (and come to think of it, I missed the first few episodes), and I'm still a bit uncertain of whether I think it's awesome or just disturbing. I did dig their Hello Kitty parody, though. (-: I loved Mind Game (though it's about as weird as Paranoia Agent); haven't seen the other films yet.
@Courier: How does the Bubblegum Crisis 8-ep OVA differ from the full "Tokyo" series?
Have any of you seen "Otaku no Video", by the way?
On Studio Ghibli: Great overall moviemaking, from writing and characterization to cinematography to editing; beautiful films in many ways. Still, they definitely have their reoccurring style / "thing," and it's nice to see others do equally excellent work that isn't cloning Ghibli. (5 Centimeters per Second, e.g., or Tokyo Godfathers. Or Ghost in the Shell, the movie, for that matter.)
@SnapSlav: More broadly, I think most anime require that you get to episode 4 or 5 before you really understand enough of what's going on. That's one reason I like anime so much, actually; the good ones don't spoon-feed you. Madoka's definitely on my short list to watch soon.
I've watched a few eps of One Piece; I wasn't able to get into it much (yet) but at least one episode tugged on my heart strings a bit, as I was given to empathize with a character - and it was done subtly through the circumstances and story and character moments, not manipulating me through over-the-top music cues or excessive
dog-kicking or anything. So I can see why people like the series so much. I still need to get past (or rather, get accustomed to) the art style and the comedy as primary focus, and start the series from the beginning; I think catching a few random episodes mid-series is working against me (as it would / should with most well-done anime with their more subtly- and carefully-developed characters and plot lines).
By the way, I had the same problem getting into Eureka 7 as you did, SnapSlav; I still really can't stand Renton Thurston, the stupid, whiny little brat. It's not in my top 10 favorite anime, but it is pretty accessible to anime newbies, and I still had our anime club buy the DVDs; there were enough great elements in the series that I was able to set aside my annoyance at Renton (usually) and appreciate the series as a whole. Plus I had to keep reminding myself that Renton's a kid, and his emotions and childish, naive, or just plain stupid behaviors are generally appropriate for the character, though likely all exaggerated for effect.
I felt the series was worth the effort, anyway: Not only does it have great music (imho) and characters that are easy on the eyes, but there are many satisfying, uplifting scenes and character moments, as well as complex relationships developed over the series, not to mention entertaining in-jokes and allusions (like the ship's engineers being named Jobs and Woz[niak]) and the scientist Greg "Bear" Egan, which is a reference to SF writers Greg Bear and Greg Egan. Plus I had the pleasure of telling Greg Bear that one of the characters was named after him; if you've ever met Greg Bear, who's a real bear of a man, you'd get a kick out of the resemblance between him and the anime character. Plus both the man and the character are super knowledgeable about science and are great associative, "out of the box" thinkers.
Still, I have to admit that I haven't been driven to re-watch the series in the way I am for Ghost in the Shell: SAC/2nd Gig, Sword Art Online, or Death Note, mostly because of Renton. Not only is he whiny, but often his decisions made me want to slap him upside the head and shout "No!" or demand "WHY?!?". Who knows: Maybe the target audience is simply a lot younger than I am.
5545Trey: Yes, many anime are cliched or formulaic, including fan-service elements. Even the really good anime can have these downfalls to some extent. But as Walpknut essentially said, every genre has its
tropes and its better and worse examples of how they're used. The best anime (like the best SF works) respect the audience's intelligence and use tropes intelligently or
play with them in fresh or meaningful ways,
subverting or
lampshading as needed, for example.
On the topic of subs, I think it's usually a matter of taste, so not worth debating. For me (my taste), unless there are clear significant variances in accuracy and quality, I prefer dubs because I find myself so intent on the visual elements of the frame that I want to keep my eyes on them and not have to keep going back and forth to read the subtitles, often missing subtle (or not-so-subtle) visual elements. Kind of analogous to why I like keyboard shortcuts so much: they cut down on the time it takes (and mistake potential it creates) to move my hand from keyboard to mouse and back to keyboard again.
But I will say that I'm not *against* subtitles, and it's really interesting to watch subs while also listening to dubs to see how they're similar and different. I watched Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 that way, and some of the variances in translation were striking.
(In the end, both subs and dubs are translations, so perhaps viewing anime in the original Japanese, if not outright
being Japanese, is always going to be the "best" choice of the three options. ;*)
-m
