The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime

[SignOfZeta]

I used to watch that one on 16mm in Elementary school. It has that cool haunting despondency that only anime from that era can achieve.

[DragonmasterDan]

I used to watch that one on 16mm in Elementary school. It has that cool haunting despondency that only anime from that era can achieve.

I think there's a dollar store version of it produced years ago that just includes the edited and dubbed version. (I have the Wonderful World of Hans Christian Andersen that Toei Douga made in the late 60s in a similar dollar store terrible looking format). But this is a nicely transferred, properly colored, subtitled with Japanese audio (and if you want to hear it dubbed it's there too) release.

[ClodBuster]

I just placed my order for the Robot Carnival and Orguss DVDs at Rightstuf. Thank god they're finally accepting Paypal payments. Discotek Media themselves don't accept international orders - bummer! But I think that's not too bad, since Robot Carnival was on discount ($10 off) on Rightstuf. They also claimed that Orguss would be on discount, but I see the same price of $49 shown on Discotek's shop.

I'm so excited!

[xelement5x]

I actually finally watched Robot Carnival this weekend and was pretty delighted by it, it was worth the time in almost every sense, and the animation looked very very good. 

In the complete opposite side of the spectrum I'm watching a kind of slice of life/coming of age show called Golden Time.  It's fun enough and I just watch it while at the gym still.

[johnnykonami]

I have loved Robot Carnival ever since the Sci-Fi channel was showing anime back in the 90's and have wanted an official DVD of it ever since.  I was thrilled to find out Discotek was doing just that and asked for it for my birthday, here's hoping someone picked it up for me!  Discotek has some pretty great releases.  Maybe one day they'll do Lensman, also.

[SignOfZeta]

I have RC and Lensman on LD, US versions, surpringly good LDs considering so many US LDs kinda suck.

I'll be sure to get the BR too. While Lensman isn't half the movie Robot Carnival is, they are both a good example of what anime used to be like. Even the seriously disappointing stuff like Lensman still kinda kicks ass, it certainly has things modern shows don't.

[johnnykonami]

I agree that Lensman isn't the best thing I've ever seen, but I do have a degree of Sci-fi channel nostalgia for it.  That channel also made me a fan of The New Adventures of Gigantor (and I was already a fan of Tokyo Movie Shinsha (TMS) cartoons like Bionic 6, Galaxy High School, Mighty Orbots, and really almost all of the stuff they ever made during the 80's), The Prisoner, and probably some others that slipped my mind at the moment.  Which BR are you talking about, BTW?  I thought that Robot Carnival's discotek release was DVD only, unless you are talking about a Japanese BR.

I agree that Anime had a totally different feel back then.  We had a little club and got new freshly taped shows as they aired for a while, and even though there's been a handful (pretty rare actually) of new shows that have come out in recent years, all of my favorites (including themes) are from yesteryear.  Cyberpunk, horror, giant robots, demons, etc. etc. etc. vs. now the cute and bubbly Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC summoning fare of late.  I admit my favorite of all time is Urusei Yatsura though, which is pretty cute and bubbly.  But great!

I never got into the LD scene.  I remember when DVDs were first getting kinda big, and my buddy and I still went to conventions.  He bought a ton of LDs on the cheap then, and I think a couple of players.  I don't think we've ever really watched any of them, they were always such a hassle compared to DVDs.  I'm sure if he had the space at the time and one of the players setup, and it was something we couldn't get otherwise, we might have checked it out.  Still, LDs are a neat piece of history.

[SignOfZeta]

How are LDs "a bother"? You plug it in, you turn it on, you put the movie in. Are you so physically weak that a DVD can be lifted but you need special equipment to lift an LD? I ask because I generally consider them far more convenient than other formats. They don't break or need rewinding like VHS. They don't have stupid menues and unskipable copyright warnings like DVDs. Anything related to random access, freeze frame, or slow motion is still vasty better on LD than any other format. They are also devoid of region locking or copyright protection.

As for BR, I guess I just meant any eventual BR that comes out. I don't do a very good job keeping up with releases these days, but I do buy Discotek stuff from time to time. They are great. I'll rarely go for a DVD if I already have the LD, but the upgrade to BR is essentially for my favorite movies. Nasuciaa, Macross: DYRL, Whisper of the Heart, Unico...

[johnnykonami]

I don't personally own any LDs, but my friend who did had limited space and didn't have any of the stuff hooked up, and all of his discs were in giant vertical stacks so getting the ones out at the bottom of the pile was all the hassle I meant.  Not that they are intrinsically troublesome, sorry about the misunderstanding.  If he had been organized enough to put them into some kind of crate or whatever to thumb through, maybe we coulda enjoyed a couple of them.  God knows if his laserdisc player even works anymore.

[xelement5x]

How are LDs "a bother"? You plug it in, you turn it on, you put the movie in. Are you so physically weak that a DVD can be lifted but you need special equipment to lift an LD? I ask because I generally consider them far more convenient that other formats. They don't break or need rewinding like VHS. They don't have stupid menues and unskipable copyright warnings like DVDs. Anything related to random access, freeze frame, or slow motion is still vasty better on LD than any other format. They are also devoid of region locking or copyright protection.

As for BR, I guess I just meant any eventual BR that comes out. I don't do a very good job keeping up with releases these days, but I do buy Discotek stuff from time to time. They are great. I'll rarely go for a DVD if I already have the LD, but the upgrade to BR is essentially for my favorite movies. Nasuciaa, Macross: DYRL, Whisper of the Heart, Unico...

A properly upscaled bluray can look very very good if it was originally animated with traditional cel animation. A lot of early computer assisted stuff from the 90's looks pretty meh though.

[SignOfZeta]

I'm not interested in any up scaled BRs. New transfers only, please.

[SignOfZeta]

I don't personally own any LDs, but my friend who did had limited space and didn't have any of the stuff hooked up, and all of his discs were in giant vertical stacks so getting the ones out at the bottom of the pile was all the hassle I meant.  Not that they are intrinsically troublesome, sorry about the misunderstanding.  If he had been organized enough to put them into some kind of crate or whatever to thumb through, maybe we coulda enjoyed a couple of them.  God knows if his laserdisc player even works anymore.

In addition to being a pain to sift through, stacking LDs (or LPs) in like that warps them.

[johnnykonami]

I don't personally own any LDs, but my friend who did had limited space and didn't have any of the stuff hooked up, and all of his discs were in giant vertical stacks so getting the ones out at the bottom of the pile was all the hassle I meant.  Not that they are intrinsically troublesome, sorry about the misunderstanding.  If he had been organized enough to put them into some kind of crate or whatever to thumb through, maybe we coulda enjoyed a couple of them.  God knows if his laserdisc player even works anymore.

In addition to being a pain to sift through, stacking LDs (or LPs) in like that warps them.

Yep, I bet they aren't in good shape either.  He's hardly worthy of being a museum curator.  I gave him some books once and noticed months later they were in the same bag I gave them to him in weighing down on and warping some of the books.  Damn shame.

[DragonmasterDan]

I watched what may be the final Studio Ghibli feature film. When Marnie was there.

I recommend it.

[SignOfZeta]

It's nice to see a hugely profitable studio deciding to take some time off instead of just making...you know, Cars 2 or whatever.

But there is no way this is the final Ghibi movie, as cool as that would be.