I’m amused how you introduce Akira like it’s some obscure movie, it’s like “I started watching this sci-fi movie from the 70s called “Star Wars””
Akira is a landmark movie and huge influence on not only anime but western animation and film in general.
I originally watched it soon after it was released back in our Sci-Fi club in HS, it was pretty amazing to have seen it back then even with the original dub, which in some ways I sort of prefer. The updated dub while generally I believe is regarded as better removed one of my favorite lines “They don’t teach tact at the Academy”
Ha yeah, Akira. The cognitive dissonance of being a fuck-this-shitty-world teenager full of sullen ressentiment, and yet somehow having this super-cool motorcycle to play with… But yeah, it sure turns out there is something there to be pissed off about :)
Akira was my introduction to anime and it’s quite a thing. But if you haven’t already, the manga is the thing to check out. There’s a loooot of stuff that got left out of the movie.
A couple of things I watched recently that I forgot to mention here:
Knights of Sidonia - I finished Season 2 on Netflix. Great stuff. I love that for the most part this show earns its victories and doesn’t do some kind of sleight of hand to get the heroes out of trouble. Even if the series ends here, this was a good ending to the series.
Food Wars - I watched the opening episode because a co-worker was recommending this. I’m really turned off by it. Having an anime about cooking is a good idea, but the nudity and the over-the-top sexual shenanigans used to show how delicious or disgusting the food is makes this the first cooking show that actually doesn’t make me hungry when I watch it. It’s not sexy either. It’s just weird and disgusting. I’ll probably give it another shot past the first episode though.
I don’t know the technical terms, but I don’t like the “shading”, its too flat, the animations could be a little better. I believe this “waiting” will pay off. We are on setup episodes for what is next.
Apparently the anime studio are putting a lot of love in details, small things that we may not be noticing just now. Is a universe where theres a lot going on in background, and even showing all that happens in the novels of webserie would be hard, they are showing some things, hiding others. Maybe we are missing some of the “fluf” that was removed.
I think is on the next episode (24?) where some decisions and stuff are going to become apparent and it will be like a collision of a subaru car against a wall of bricks at 220 km/h.
Meanwhile I have started watching other stuff. :-/
So I told my co-worker about watching the first episode, and he admitted all he’s seen is the first episode as well. And he was just basically baiting me to watch semi-porn so that we could make fun of anime tropes like the excessive nudity and over-sexualization of every situation. Well done Sir! You got me.
Don’t break your arms patting yourself on the back too hard there chief. Food Wars is actually pretty good, if you aren’t hopelessly prudish about the sexualized food reactions, which are pretty obviously played for laughs.
That being said, the first episode is an odd duck in the overall context of the show. It doesn’t really get rolling until the protagonist settles in at the cooking academy, at which point it basically becomes Bleach with stoves.
I just watched a few episodes because I love cooking shows but this is pretty extreme, at least from my exposure to anime. My eyebrows rose an alarming amount just in the first episode when the tentacles literally dove in between… ug.
I think subtlely would have gone a long way here, rather than the complete over the top orgasmic experience each bite inflicts. They have nowhere to go now, short of a Final Fantasy style planetary detonation.
I was just recounting what my co-worker said. I don’t have much exposure to anime, but the ones that I’ve seen don’t follow the pattern he’s talking about anyway, even if Food War’s first episode does.
And yeah, @Gendal, when she ate the bad-tasting shrimp and she got tentacle-raped by it, it was pretty extreme. You’re right, the first episode is so over the top, I’m not sure where they can go from here.
Agreed 100%. Food Wars is great. The over-sexualization is pulled back considerably from the first episode, which is very much an outsider. It doesn’t lose it completely, but it’s more laid back about it and not nearly as explicit. It’s one of my favorite anime of recent times. You can’t take it seriously, it’s playing with the trope quite a bit.
It’s just a lot of fun. Watch a couple more episodes for sure if the only thing that bothered you was the ridiculous tentacle sexy times.
Crunchyroll and Funimation have announced a partnership today, with some content from each immediately available on the other (Bebop in Japanese!) and much more to come.
Cowboy Bepop on Crunchyroll? Sounds cool. I’ve always wanted to see that ever since I watched Samurai Shamploo, since it was by the same team that did Bepop.
I’ve watched all the bebop eps many times. And I probably actually have the Japanese audio on my dvd set. Still, cool to see it on crunchyroll. One of the best anime ever made, just for the music. And the rest ain’t so bad either.
