Anime and Manga Discussion Thread

[Nobby-W]

I've watched a bit of anime - my wife is more of a fan than I am.

Mostly the usual suspects - Full Metal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost In the Shell, Attack on Titan, NGE, Wolf Children, Ranma-1/2, most of Ghibli's feature films and so forth. Spirited Away is my favourite of Miyazaki's stuff, but my fave of Ghibli's is Takahara's Whisper of the Heart.

There are quite a few I haven't seen, particularly older TV series - I've never actually seen a mecha series like Gundam, although the concept doesn't really grab me.

Fun fact: Doryaki (filled pancakes) are colloquially known as Roti Doraemon in Indonesia.

 

[3rik]

Wolf Children

Aww, loved that one!

kawaii overdose

reminds me of... me

 

[TristramEvans]

I've watched more than a little - not enough to be an Otaku*; I'm never up on the crrent season trends, and I tend to be a bit picky. But I do watch a few series a year, and follow a few Youtubers that do analysis.

*I don't really care for Otaku culture in general, especially with the focus on....well, less culturally-acceptable in the West fetishes. I actively avoid anime fans online.

 

[Edgewise]

Last weekend I caught a very strange anime: Inuyashiki. Weird-ass stuff about a middle-aged guy in an android body who saves people and a sociopath kid in a different android body who kills as many people as possible. I'm still not sure if it was great, interesting or terrible.

 

[TristramEvans]

Last weekend I caught a very strange anime: Inuyashiki. Weird-ass stuff about a middle-aged guy in an android body who saves people and a sociopath kid in a different android body who kills as many people as possible. I'm still not sure if it was great, interesting or terrible.

Yeah, I own that one, but haven't finished it yet - lack of a dub means I can't do schoolwork while watching.

It's from the same guy who did Gantz, an astounding series

 

[Edgewise]

It's from the same guy who did Gantz, an astounding series

I've seen some very positive things about Gantz, and they make several overt references to it (as a manga, not as part of a shared world) within Inuyashiki.

 

[TristramEvans]

I've seen some very positive things about Gantz

If you want to be sold on it, this is the best guy to do it

 

[Edgewise]

That's the one I watched. I'm a fan of SEW's videos.

 

[TristramEvans]

That's the one I watched. I'm a fan of SEW's videos.

Yeah, even stuff I have no interest in he has a way of making interesting.

 

[Voros]

I've watched a bit of anime - my wife is more of a fan than I am.

Mostly the usual suspects - Full Metal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost In the Shell, Attack on Titan, NGE, Wolf Children, Ranma-1/2, most of Ghibli's feature films and so forth. Spirited Away is my favourite of Miyazaki's stuff, but my fave of Ghibli's is Takahara's Whisper of the Heart.

There are quite a few I haven't seen, particularly older TV series - I've never actually seen a mecha series like Gundam, although the concept doesn't really grab me.

Fun fact: Doryaki (filled pancakes) are colloquially known as Roti Doraemon in Indonesia.

May have already mentioned this earlier in the thread but Miyazaki doesn't consider his work anime. Apparently in Japan the term came out of low-budget tv animation that used a minimum of frames per second to animate the action, popularized by the great Tezuka to describe his Astroboy cartoon and it later became associated with cartoons created for young audiences to sell toys. In the West we use the term to refer to all Japanese animation but apparently in Japan it has a more specific meaning and certain Japanese animators like Miyazaki resist the use of the term to describe their work for that reason.

 

[Voros]

I've seen some very positive things about Gantz, and they make several overt references to it (as a manga, not as part of a shared world) within Inuyashiki.

Apparently there is a live action version too? Outside of Miike's adaptations of manga most of the live action films seem to get little purchase outside of Japan, whether that is because of a lack of quality or other reasons I'm not sure.

 

[Edgewise]

Outside of Miike's adaptations of manga most of the live action films seem to get little purchase outside of Japan, whether that is because of a lack of quality or other reasons I'm not sure.

The only live adaptation of a manga that I've ever considered good was Ichi the Killer, so that always seemed logical to me.

 

[TristramEvans]

I liked the Japanese live action Death Note


The Netflix one, on the other hand, was a glass of piss served in an excrement coconut with a dick-shaped swirly-straw

 

[Voros]

Last weekend I caught a very strange anime: Inuyashiki. Weird-ass stuff about a middle-aged guy in an android body who saves people and a sociopath kid in a different android body who kills as many people as possible. I'm still not sure if it was great, interesting or terrible.

Your description intrigued me enough to check it out and I'm half-way through and it is an interesting mix of sentimentality, gonzo ultra-violence and meta-commentary on manga/anime/superheroes. Will be interesting to see if it can stick the landing, so much anime and manga lose their way after promising starts, this looks to be a self-contained and shorter series though.

 

[Séadna]

Never watched or read Black Butler, the setup sounds interesting but I suspect the rest of the series would very much not be my jam.

But this recent review of the manga on Polygon sums up my problem with so much anime and manga ‘reviews’ in North America: this desperate, convoluted ‘twist’ is a beyond stupid melodramatic cliche that would prompt laughter and mockery in most quarters but the reviewer blithely praises it.

Most of these reviewers cultural knowledge and horizons seem strictly limited to anime itself (they even seem surprisingly ignorant of Japanese literature and film too) and so are largely uncritical.

What I find is that anime is very tropey, which in fact often means the more "serious" the work the less I tend to like it. You can almost predict the "friendship and trust is the most important thing" speeches, different series even using similar phrases in the delivery of such speeches.

Another example: the repeated element of the male protagonist either having no luck with women and accidentally looking like a perv ("What I didn't know all of you swimming naked in my garden pool! lol, omfg!") or having a bunch of women around him who all fancy him but he's always blushing and not sure who he likes etc. These two things happen again and again even in shows that are trying to be serious.

Serious anime is often like Camus's "The Outsider" but the main character keeps slipping on a banana peel causing his trousers to fall down and at his conviction trial the judge fancies him. Like the author is making a serious point, but it's hard to filter out the nonsense. Also to be honest the philosophy/ethics/etc being explored is often very shallow.

 

[Nobby-W]

Aww, loved that one!

kawaii overdose

reminds me of... me

Summer Wars was done by the same director and was also pretty good.

 

[Edgewise]

What I find is that anime is very tropey, which in fact often means the more "serious" the work the less I tend to like it.

I'm not an expert on anime, and I think this is generally true, but there are a couple of caveats that I've noted. First of all, my impression is that shonen anime is really the worst offender of sticking to certain tropes and themes. I've heard specifically that Shonen Jump enforces a specific aesthetic. For instance, shonen heroes never give up, they are always devoted to their friends, etc.

I think the seinen is more flexible. There you have titles like One Punch Man, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell...I know, I'm cheating by listing some of the absolute greats. But I feel the general category is far less beholden to these formulas. The relationships of characters are more complex, the protagonists are not unbeatable, people don't keep "powering up," etc.

Maybe these aren't the tropes you're talking about, so perhaps you have something in mind that spans the age groups. Of course, there are all those other genres of anime that never breakthrough in the US (I suspect it might be similar in your neck) like sports anime, gambling anime and all kinds of other bizarre stuff that defies easy categorization.

Another thing I run into periodically is that the Japanese tropes seem to standout more to me due to their foreign nature. I can't say if that's a thing for you. But I think I'm so used to Western tropes that I don't even think about them. Or at least they don't seem as artificial to me.

 

[Séadna]

Another thing I run into periodically is that the Japanese tropes seem to standout more to me due to their foreign nature. I can't say if that's a thing for you. But I think I'm so used to Western tropes that I don't even think about them. Or at least they don't seem as artificial to me.

I'll focus on this first. Japanese and American animation both feature "tropes" that are foreign to me and that do stick out. One could argue that maybe the American ones are less foreign, but I got access to American and Japanese material at roughly the same age and from speaking to Japanese people (I worked in a research group with a good few Japanese researches at one point) I think I recognised the same Americanisms in American animation that they did.

I'll also point out that this isn't something particular to America or Japan, you'll notice similar recurring tropes in most (all?) countries' media.

However I still think the bulk of anime is on the whole more tropey. Rather than a lack of creativity in Japanese writers, I think it just reflects that animation is used more broadly in Japan. To brief in Japan they'll make a crappy anime rather than a crappy soap opera. However this is a well known thing in Japan and many Japanese people do look on most anime the way people in the US would look on a generic low budget soap opera running on a regional station.

The post above was more tying in with Voros 's statement that Western anime fans tend to assess anime in a skewed way. What in Japan is seen as "Shitty Magic Girl Harem anime #4567" is assessed on Western anime sites as if it were original or interesting. That you get essays about the discussion of war and the human condition in an episode of something where the protagonist is running around magic boner or something. Or the character development of a female character who runs around in a low cut French maid outfit and accidentally finds herself nude for 95% of the show.

I think the seinen is more flexible. There you have titles like One Punch Man, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell...I know, I'm cheating by listing some of the absolute greats. But I feel the general category is far less beholden to these formulas. The relationships of characters are more complex, the protagonists are not unbeatable, people don't keep "powering up," etc.

That's certainly true. I don't want to disparage good anime like Bebop and Ghost in the Shell and Seinen as a whole is better.

Maybe these aren't the tropes you're talking about, so perhaps you have something in mind that spans the age groups. Of course, there are all those other genres of anime that never breakthrough in the US (I suspect it might be similar in your neck) like sports anime, gambling anime and all kinds of other bizarre stuff that defies easy categorization.

These tend to be available in Europe as they are very popular in France and Italy. Italy has a similar Tankōbon sized comic culture with some classics like Corto Maltese which I love beyond reason:


It's in fact the larger collection of things like Sports Anime and the like I'm thinking of. And I think here we see that anime is serving a similar purpose that small soaps or dramas would have in Europe and the US. A British channel might make a short drama about a bunch of local lads trying to form a soccer team, in Japan that will be an anime.

However in Western fan sites this will be reviewed as if it is potentially on the same creative level as Bebop. A show where the protagonists get good enough at soccer that they can form black holes when they kick the ball (a very common element as sport stuff is often merged with Shonen progression to fantastical levels) is discussed as if it were innovative. Voros's link to the Black Butler review above is an example.

 

[Templum Domini]

Snip.

Very good points. So basically, even the crappiest Japanese Anime is treated as 'creative' and 'novel' by Americans because it's animated, even though the plot is basically that of a crappy Soap Opera or some other TV show?

I can see that. I think it may have something to do with how Animation in the US is seen as 'kid's stuff', and to see Animation (And to a lesser extent, comics) used for stuff that is definitely not for kids (or adult comedy) is automatically 'different'.

 

[Edgewise]

The post above was more tying in with @Voros 's statement that Western anime fans tend to assess anime in a skewed way. What in Japan is seen as "Shitty Magic Girl Harem anime #4567" is assessed on Western anime sites as if it were original or interesting.

Oh I get you...yeah, this is pretty ridiculous. There certainly is a lot of trash anime, and Western anime fans are among the most tiresome defenders of the endless tide of gomi.

There are a few things feeding into it. First, it's still pretty new in the West, especially the US. Second, because anime is still a bit nichey, I think its Western audience tends to think it's smarter for having found it. Finally, because animation in the US (not so much in France, say) is traditionally children's fare, it can attract a childish crowd. Incidentally, I think that made it very hard for anime to get its foothold here; the hyper-violence seems worse when you assume that it's all marketed to kids.

I think we'll get over a lot of it. The last two decades has seen animation rise in prominence in the US, including plenty of American animations. You could argue that it actually began here with The Simpsons; it's easy to forget how ground-breaking that show used to be. Also, Cartoon Network has done some amazing stuff over the years. I simply can't sing the praises of Genndy Tartakovsky loudly enough, for instance - have you seen Primal? Do! His work has probably made some inroads for anime, but you've also go more mature fare like Home Movies that sits completely apart.

It's like beer; a lot of people, even in the US, don't realize how far we've come with quality in recent years.

I had one of those moments yesterday in my favorite beverage shop. I was perusing the new sours, and a guy comes in asking if they have any cases of Bud Light. No, says the clerk, he thinks they're out. The guy walks out and I exchange a look with the clerk. Plebe! we both say telepathically. Beer snobs are the worst, by the way.

Never seen Black Butler, but you guys make it sound like I'm not missing anything.

 

[Voros]

I just read this nifty short manga by Imiri Sakabashira The Box-Man, it is a surreal picturesque ‘story’ about a man on a scooter with a cat delivering his half-crab father to the sea. Originally serialized in the underground manga magazine Ax. Nicely drawn and evocative. Just a taste of the more unusual material that the much-cheaper to produce manga market makes possible in Japan. I wonder if the term and idea of ‘The Box-Man’ has some other layer of meaning in Japan as the great surrealist novelist Kobo Abe also wrote a novel with the same title.

 

[Voros]

I ended up quite liking Inuyashiki quite a bit, it actually did quite a good job contrasting its otaku villain and its Silver Age hero.

Just started Vinland Saga on Prime and it is beautifully animated with OTT violence but lots of quiet character moments too. I know it gets compared to Berzerk but aside from being set in a medieval period (a fantasy one in Berzerk's case) with gory sword fights I think they are very tonally different.

 

[Edgewise]

I ended up quite liking Inuyashiki quite a bit, it actually did quite a good job contrasting its otaku villain and its Silver Age hero.

The best parts of it were definitely rooted in those two characters. I found the old man's unironic and unconflicted embrace of heroism to be very endearing. The kid was pretty chilling, and he felt like a realistic character. The entire show has some very odd emotional notes, and mixes them into the action scenes in ways that are funny, off-putting and strangely dramatic.

Still, it's such an off-beat specimen that I'm hesitant to recommend it to most people.

Just started Vinland Saga on Prime and it is beautifully animated with OTT violence but lots of quiet character moments too.

I've heard nothing but positive things about this show, and I've seen some pretty great clips of it on youtube. And tonight I just noticed that season one was on Prime. Since we've got that streaming through the Roku set in the living room, I'm thinking of watching it for the first time with my wife. I usually preview genre fare before showing it to her, but this one has such a strong reputation, and the clips I've seen back this up.

 

[Edgewise]

The title character of Inyashiki reminds me of the similarly nebbishy salaryman of Kengan Ashura, Kazuo Yamashita. This trope is new to me, but then so many are. I'm sure it could get old very quickly if overused.

Speaking of KA, who else has seen that? It's a Baki rip-off with lots of CG on Netflix, but I think it's a massive blast of cheesy fun. It dials up everything absurd and over-the-top about battle manga. I can't wait for the next season.

 

[TristramEvans]

May have already mentioned this earlier in the thread but Miyazaki doesn't consider his work anime.

Well, we could go 90's and call it "Japanimation", but having heard Miyazaki's rants firsthand about anime, I think he's just pulling a MArgaret Atwood. Like most artistic talents he's obviously kind of an asshole, which is fine.


Luckily I'm only mildly talented, so I'm just a part-time asshole.

 

[TristramEvans]

I watched No Game, No Life recently.

It's funny the whole time I watched it, I was like "this is so bad", but when I finished I realized I was never not thoroughly entertained, and was sorry to see it end.

For those who don't know it, Gigguk sums it up quite well -

 

[Nobby-W]

Well, we could go 90's and call it "Japanimation", but having heard Miyazaki's rants firsthand about anime, I think he's just pulling a MArgaret Atwood. Like most artistic talents he's obviously kind of an asshole, which is fine.


Luckily I'm only mildly talented, so I'm just a part-time asshole.

I have seen some of a Japanese fly-on-the-wall TV series about him, and he does seem like a grumpy old sod in person.

Roald Dahl was also routinely horrible to people who worked at his publishers - at one point they threatened to drop him.

In a similar vein, there's a famous statue of Dante Alligheri outside a church in Florence and he also looks like a miserable old sod.

 

[Antiquation!]

So it's not actually Japanese animation, but I think it counts as "anime" as short for general "animation."

"Edit & I," a sort of puzzling but interesting and visually creative cyberpunk movie. It's Serbian in origin, and takes place in Belgrade in the year 2074. I didn't outright love it but it was quite an interesting watch with some creative worldbuilding and a plot that escalates somewhat unexpectedly.

Technotise: Edit & I (2009) ⭐ 7.3 | Animation, Drama, Sci-Fi

1h 40m | Not Rated

www.imdb.com

 

[urbwar]

There's also the Japanese/Russian "First Squad"

 

[Voros]

Next up is Hayashi's early 70s counterculture classic Red Colored Elegy.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

Like most artistic talents he's obviously kind of an asshole, which is fine.

Preach.
I used to give a fuck about what artists thought and did in real life, but over time I realized...
A) I'll never enjoy any art again at this rate.
B) "Death of the Author"* theory is correct.
C) Tragic as it may sometimes be, full-time artists are (to varying degrees of course) dysfunctional, delusional, expendable neurotics who effectively choose to gamble on the wrong side of supply-and-demand for a living.

So unless they turn their actual lives into performance art, why bother looking behind the stage curtain? I'll just pay for my ticket and get on with my own life, thank you very much.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author

 

[Voros]

Prime has the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross up and I'm rewatching it, about 4 episodes in and I'm digging it as a YA sf although right now Minmay is kinda ridiculously useless although I realize she will be important later on. Misa is way more interesting of a character. That the actress playing Minmay actually became a big Japanese pop singer based off the series is pretty surreal.

Animation-wise I think some of the characters are lacking (no doubt due to budget) but the battle scenes and mecha still stand up well.



Wanting to find something actually balanced and intelligent on the series I discovered the Anime Encyclopedia which had its third edition in 2015. The ebook on Kindle is a reasonable $17 CAD.

This is a breath of fresh air, historically accurate, rigorous, reasonably balanced but not uncritical. This will help sorting the wheat from the chaff when it comes to anime worth my time. Also does a great job of discussing the actual position of anime in Japan and the influence (not always positive) the Western fandom has had on the industry. Although now I know far more about Lolicon than I probably ever wanted to.

 

[Voros]

Anyone watching the new hotness Demon Slayer? Only one episode in, nicely animated, I've read the first volume of the manga and so far this is very faithful aside from the insertion of some unnecessary anime cliches in characterization not in the manga and a soundtrack that is a bit too intrusive for the quieter moments.

I do get tired of the 'cool guy, lack of affect badass' trope too, it is something that kinda killed my interest in Vinland about half way through.

 

[Séadna]

This is a breath of fresh air, historically accurate, rigorous, reasonably balanced but not uncritical. This will help sorting the wheat from the chaff when it comes to anime worth my time. Also does a great job of discussing the actual position of anime in Japan and the influence (not always positive) the Western fandom has had on the industry. Although now I know far more about Lolicon than I probably ever wanted to.

I've been reading this since you recommended it yesterday, thanks. I was just a bit in when I saw that "special" terms like OAV/OVA were being dumped, replaced by their typical equivalents for a more straight forward analysis. Exactly what the medium needs and the book has kept going strong on this point.

 

[Templum Domini]

I am frustrated by the ending of Trickster (an Anime from 2016). Basically:

Spoiler: Spoilers for Trickster

The Anime is about a teenage adrenaline addict who meets another boy, one with white hair and red eyes, who in turn had a mysterious power that prevented him from dying. Said boys are also part of a futuristic, sci-fi version of the Boy Detectives' Club from Edogawa Ranpo's Mystery Novels, and wind up in the battle between a futuristic version of Kogoro Akechi (the mentor and 'great detective') and the Fiend of Twenty Faces (your typical psychopathic criminal obsessed with the mentor).

The white-haired boy's power then turns out to be activated when he wants to die and deactivates when he wants to live, which in turn makes sure that he can only be injured when he stops wishing for death. And in the ending, he does not lose that power, meaning that he is still suicidally depressed even though the ending is portrayed as a very sweet and happy one.

Oh, and Kogoro Akechi turns out to be a high-functioning sociopath who decides that the best way to keep Twenty Faces from harming people is to stay with him and become his lover.

So, yeah, I am looking for people to complain about the ending with me.

 

[Edgewise]

Anyone watching the new hotness Demon Slayer?

I've heard really good things, and I've seen some splendid sakuga excerpts, so it's on my list.

I do get tired of the 'cool guy, lack of affect badass' trope too, it is something that kinda killed my interest in Vinland about half way through.

That's a shame; I've heard really good things about that one and it's also on the anime shortlist.

Recently I've been watching near-anime. I've been working my way through the Harley Quinn animated series, which is surprisingly funny and good. I also watched Justice League Action for some super-light fun, and it held up really well. Not as rich as the DCU shows from over a decade ago, it's fast and punchy and just well-done. It's a tiny bit more "kid's fare," but it doesn't get as overwrought as the older shows could sometimes get i.e. it doesn't take itself seriously.

Also, some top notch voice acting for JLA. In addition to Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as Joker, you've got James Woods doing Lex Luthor, plus a lot of satisfying stunt casting (Patton Oswalt, Ken Jeong, etc.).

 

[Voros]

Some anime the wife and I have been watching and enjoying.

Monster, a thriller from the same manga author who did 20th Century Boys. Really good so far, even the English dub is decent and it has David Slyvian singing an original song over the end credits for extra cool points. According to the Anime encyclopedia Del Toro was trying to develop this into a series with HBO and I could see that working.



Future Conan Boy, an early Takahita/Miyazaki kids sf adventure TV series. Interesting to see something from the late 70s that is better animated in most ways than what you see today although considering who is behind it I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.



Pupa is something completely different, a very dark and grotesque horror anime about the twisted relationship between two abused siblings infected with a Cronenbergian body horror 'virus.' Quite short and perhaps even incomplete with an abrupt ending, each episode is only about 3 mins after the intro and outro and censored to a degree, I assume for late night TV broadcast but very memorable and effective for horror fans. Kinda blown away to see the negative reviews this got from Western anime fandom online, one more reason to not trust Weebo tastes.

 

[Séadna]

Future Boy Conan is massively popular in Catalonia since the Catalan dub is very good, so I ended up watching it there twice when friends said "You gotta see this!"

It's really enjoyable. Like many anime from that time even the visuals alone are worth it, e.g. ruins of the former world.

I rewatched Angel's Egg a wierd alt-religious history scifi (I think). Again visuals are captivating even if it can be a bit overly strange.

 

[EmperorNorton]

Monster's anime is really good, but I feel like it is very slow sometimes. I feel it worked better as a manga (I love the manga. I think it is the fact that I can read at whatever speed I can read at, while the anime has a set pace). Like it is very faithful to the original work, which I love, but I can't watch it a second time, the pace is just really hard to handle in a medium I can't control the pace of. Voros

 

[Voros]

Monster's anime is really good, but I feel like it is very slow sometimes. I feel it worked better as a manga (I love the manga. I think it is the fact that I can read at whatever speed I can read at, while the anime has a set pace). Like it is very faithful to the original work, which I love, but I can't watch it a second time, the pace is just really hard to handle in a medium I can't control the pace of. Voros

I can see that, it is a lot of episodes. I tend to read the manga rather than watch the anime if I can as I find manga art is usually more distinctive and manga is less beholden to tropes as so much anime seems to be.