Anime your top ten favorites

Bagginski

Bagginski

Well-Known Member
I normally binge heavily, absorbing +/-24 episodes daily if I’ve got something to watch. So many of these stories I simply watch them all, in a gulp. Taking breaks gives my head too many opportunities to wander on ahead of the story, so I tend not to keep up with weekly episodes (when ‘Illuminatus!’ was released, I didn’t start reading until I had all *three* volumes in my possession). Taking a break typically means I’m having a problem with the story, with the telling, or with the place I’m in right then...and I often won’t go back to a story a second time, unless it hit me in ways that I HAD to stop and think about.

One thing I’ve thought of just recently is that anime fulfills the exact same goal and function as science fiction: to create entirely new situations and circumstances, and challenge ordinary people to adapt and overcome...or not. The difference is in the reliance on realistic science as the container universe for the extraordinary circumstances, rather than pure fantasy.: from the point of view of the characters, their investment, their motivations, their individual stories, it makes no difference whether the situation of the moment is the result of interplanetary politics, or elemental magic, or generational vengeance. All stories are HUMAN stories, they’re about BECOMING, about things CHANGING, about what happens *next*.

Which I suppose is just a way of saying this is all opera. It tears at the heart with the same fingers.

Some anime tales seem to require breaks - like Mushi-Shi, which rurumo* recommended. Some are more naturally episodic, like Durarara!, in which the stories, while interconnected, are gems of their own. Some simply take more time to integrate each episode, like Made in Abyss. Some are simply so stunning visually that the visual palette needs to recover, like Kaguya-Sama: Love is War.

At this point I feel like I’ve moved past the adventurer and game tropes, past the ‘only boy in school’ and harem tropes, past the boob jokes and mech-suits and transforming titans. I’m starting to learn new words, like ecci and isekai and shonen and seinen and shoujo. I’m starting to learn there’s a lot more to this than I have available to me. The folks in this conversation are to thank for much of this, so - thank you.



* - I got your name right!
 
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Jeffislovinlife

Jeffislovinlife

Well-Known Member
Thanks for that and I'll give it a go kind of felt like it was right there with Ninja scrolls with the artwork but we'll see how it goes with the storyline
 
Jeffislovinlife

Jeffislovinlife

Well-Known Member
BudmanTX said:
you should ck out Afro Samuri too if you like that one......Samuel L Jackson plays the lead voice...and there is a number 2 of that as well...called Ressurection.....both are good...
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Tried it and not so much I try and give all anime at least 4 episodes but I could not make it though one of them
 
Bagginski

Bagginski

Well-Known Member
Yeah, I’ll probably have to watch that...and, Afro Samurai, you say? With SLJ?? Well, shit.....

new on Hulu: Higurashi: When They Cry...at the start of the second 14...I think I get it now, maybe
I don’t think I can recommend this...it’s effing graphic and violent as hell
 
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BudmanTX

BudmanTX

Well-Known Member
Jeffislovinlife said:
Well I think for me it was the voice that did it for me the voice was Samuel L Jackson but the artwork was not Samuel Jackson and I don't think I could get over that
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Jackson play the voice of the grey haired guy smoke a cig, I'm thinkin conscience or the mind eye, all the other voices are different people. Resurrection has Lucy lu as a voice too...co it out....it's really not bad art work and story line for a full movie.
 
Jeffislovinlife

Jeffislovinlife

Well-Known Member
BudmanTX said:
Jackson play the voice of the grey haired guy smoke a cig, I'm thinkin conscience or the mind eye, all the other voices are different people. Resurrection has Lucy lu as a voice too...co it out....it's really not bad art work and story line for a full movie.
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I might give it other try who knows it might be like steampunk for me I had to give that one another try to
 
Bagginski

Bagginski

Well-Known Member
Bagginski said:
new on Hulu: Higurashi: When They Cry...at the start of the second 14...I think I get it now, maybe
I don’t think I can recommend this...it’s effing graphic and violent as hell
Click to expand...
Wow. Okay, so I can say “I think I get it now, maybe” with more certainty. This thing has tricks up its sleeve for sure. It is graphically violent - right up to, if not actually over, the top. Much of the violence is as heartbreaking as it is horrifying, and as extreme as it is, it mostly isn’t just flat-out weird. The storytelling is subtle at first, the layers accumulate, the impact is profound. It’s use of viewpoint is like nothing I can think of but Rashomon...except of course it’s nothing like that...but the overall sense of things teeters on the edge between spooky and creepy, ramping up to moments of real horror. The uncertainty pervades everything.

I love all the characters, they’re the standard harumesque cast, but extremely well fleshed and explored, they’re all easy to care about and relate to, and the layering I vaguely referred to earlier really adds up to rich characters. There is no harem or fan service in this one. No boob jokes, no crotch shots, no bounce shots, not even anime nudity.

This is a 24-episode first season, and watching it was both grueling and compelling. I will be bent out of shape if there’s no second season because of where and how this season ends. The story is far from complete. Is it really a horror story? Not really: it’s more an often-bloody, often-violent meditation on attachment and desire, the nature of connection, the cycle of rebirth, and the way of the Bodhisattva. Maybe. You’ve been warned.
 
Rurumo

Rurumo

Well-Known Member
The new season has been a bit of a letdown, esp compared to last season which was unusually good. A few decent shows continuing on, but so far the only new shows I like are Odd Taxi, Mars Red, and Godzilla: Singular Point. How not to summon a demon lord is back today, but it wasn't exactly a masterpiece to begin with!! Anyway, if you guys have a weird sense of humor and/or are interested in modern Japanese culture, Odd Taxi is pretty funny. There is a show called Mashiro no Oto with some beautiful Shamisen playing, if you like "musical" anime, which I do. I love how any weird instrument, game, or sport has, or will have, an anime. Like, there is an anime about Kabaddi this season, which apparently is the national sport of Bangladesh, but which I've only ever heard of in anime.
 
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