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Ok, we've had lots of talk and debate about series that aren't currently spotlighted in the comments section of the page. So in hopes to alleviate the clutter that massive comment based discussions create I present to you the "Open Discussion" thread. This thread is for anything you could possibly want to discuss with your fellow club members, whether it be Anime, Manga, or RL. So have at it guys!

Not sure what this open discussion is to contain. Random rants or reflections? Opinions and arguments?

If it's down to opinions and discussions, then I'll admit that I'm curious as to how such a lowly, pointless fanservice fest like Goldenboy makes it onto a list that contains such higher classed titles as Air, X TV, and Evangelion.

That's funny, because I've heard Golden Boy was better than all of those, from fairly intelligent anime fans.

I have never seen Golden Boy or X tv, but I have never thought very highly of Air or NGE.


As for what this thread is for, it's pretty much something to contain the overflowing conversation that is taking place in the "comments" section on the front page.

I guess if you don't think to highly of any anime with fanservice its understandable but Golden Boy also has amazing characters and story layout despite it having only 6 episodes.

I haven't seen Golden Boy but i don't really think highly of Evangelion =__=; (mother of overrated anime >_>)
Anyway, I have also heard from very good anime critics (in my opinion) that the characters in Golden Boy are pretty amazing. So I have no argument untill I watch it.

People have been telling me to watch Golden Boy but I just never got around to seeing it =/ And I don't think very highly of NGE or Air either. I've heard what was good about NGE but now that I think about it, I don't know what people thought was good about Air... Anyone care to explain?

People love them some melodrama mixed with a bit of harem. I thought it was all right, I think I gave it a seven, a masterpiece I am afraid it is not. But, I disagree with this unhighly (definitely not a real word) thinking of NGE. While it is not amazing, it was a good watch with an interesting plot and characters. I think people (because of the hype) tend to expect more, having been a novice anime fan at the time I first watched it, I came in with no expectations.

Air, though it had it's faults (I can admit that though I loved the series), was a good show if not only for the underlying drama found in the show. True, it's just another one of those multiple Harem shows based off a popular Visual Novel but you just need to get past that. The story itself is rather interesting and I like both Misuzu and Yukito's personalities, so conflicting but work perfectly together.

Then again thats just my thoughts on it. No I'm not a KyoAni fanboy, I just loved it because of the drama and those two characters.

NGE on the other hand was a disappointment. I won't say I didn't enjoy it when I first saw it, because I certainly did, but the story just wasn't that great and the characters were extremely lacking. Plus the fact that Gainax and American distributors just don't want this title to phase out by re-releasing the series, making new movies, turning it into a live action, and rewriting the original end of the series isn't helping the fact any (seriously the series was good back in the day, now let it rest in the annuals of anime history). I liked in when I first saw it, 8 years ago. Now I cringe every time I hear the name.

I can't seriously comment on Golden Boy as I have yet to have the pleasure of seeing it but from what I've heard it's supposed to be better then both NGE and Air TV. Again I won't put any thoughts on it though since I really can't.

Do you mean Gainax?

Yea, there you go. Sorry did not catch that. Thanks for correcting me.

Your very welcome.

Oh, gladly. Though it's sunk a few spaces on my personal favorites list, it's stil in the top 10 three years later.

Air is one of those really rare series that comes along every once in a while that doesn't need magical girls or giant robots or 10-episode-long one-on-one fights to make it good. It does it with pure child-like fantasy and raw human emotion.

The first thing that really caught my eye was the absolutely stunning animation. Lush backgrounds, an enormous color palette, a good lack of reuse in cels and the characters all move so fluidly. There's very little CG animation either which is very impressive in this day and age. The only real complaint is the eyes, but I chalk that up to Kyoto Animation experimenting with the style, from which they have greatly improved from nowadays.

I also have to give a nod to one of the best OSTs I've heard all year. The OP and the ED were brilliant and the song at Ep. 12 always gets me a little teary whenever I hear it. The BGM was perfect for every scene it was used in.

Like most slice-of-life dramatic anime, I didn't expect an overreaching story. Actually, I thought it was strange for Yukito to meet Misuzu right from the start and seemed like they were going to rush it. The Kano and Minagi arcs, though nothing of much value, chipped away the surface of the underlying plot while giving Yukito and Misuzu time to get better acquainted with one another. Then came the Summer arc, which did a great job of explaining the amazing but seriously tragic backstory behind Misuzu's dreams and why Yukito was always supposed to meet Misuzu. Not only that, but it adds multiple layers to the story itself, answering litlte hints left behind in episodes before. Of course, everyone who has seen the series most likely has the final arc embossed in their memory. This is where the series loses all possible links to the word "cliche" and becomes a powerful portrait of family, specifically that of a parent and their child.

Still, I believe it was the characters that really set this anime apart from the others of its shared genre. They all feel very original and have great support as to why they act the way they do, especially Haruko, who I thought was a horrible character in the beginning for distancing herself from Misuzu. But after Ep. 11, I saw her in a totally different light. Actually, the characterization behind all the characters is amazing.

Overall, I wouldn't mind saying this was my favorite anime of 2005. It's short so there's no serious commitment and the characters themselves spark a lot of real emotion. And for those bogged down by bad animation and music, this will be a bright pick-me-up to see that the harmony between sight and sound in anime is still alive.

Final word? If you haven't seen it, get it. I know what you'll probably think at first glance, but it's not a harem and there's no fanservice. This is just good old-fashioned storytelling and characterization at it's best in many many years.

I'm going to have to agree with Splitter on most of the points made above, although I will state that the family theme is actually very prevalent throughout the entire series, especially in the case of Yukito. His ancestors wanted to save Kanna no matter what, and that duty was passed down through the generations to Yukito.

What I enjoyed most about the show was the way it ended. All too often with animes of this type, the creators feel the need to make light of all the drama and tragedy by giving the audience an undeserved "happy" ending. Thankfully they stuck to their guns with Air.

I agree with Splitter on the final point as well. Air is most definitely not a harem anime, and thank the heavens that they didn't put any fanservice in there.

As for the other animes mentioned so far:

X TV - disappointing at best. The story was far too melodramatic and the characters too 1-dimensional.

NGE - I watched it when it was first released. I wasn't impressed then, and I'm still not impressed now. Too much hype, not enough substance, virtually no character development for anyone except that whining maggot Ikari Shinji (just the name makes my fists itch). I'll make it very clear - Top wo Nerae is better.

Golden Boy - Yes it has fanservice, but don't let that fool you. Golden Boy has some of the best characters in anime - ever. The story's not bad either :)

I personally found Air too bland, formulaic and mind-numbingly silly to watch, let alone thoroughly enjoy. The animation certainly was very pretty, with a huge amount of detail in the cel work, as well as really fluid movement. But I thought the character designs were quite ugly, which sort of pulled the aesthetics of the series down a notch for me. The story felt, to me, to just be trite dating sim nonsense. All the fleshed-out drama you could pack into it couldn't mask the backbone of its premise, which is scarcely more believable than Love Hina's. I realise it isn't harem, but it stinks of the bishoujo game format. I found half the characters grated on my nerves, and the way they were developed seemed immature. By the time potato came along, the stupid looking dog that ran around making absurd noises and basically wasting half an episode in a sorry excuse for a plot point, my disenchantment with Air was almost complete. I didn't end up watching that much, and I'm sure it gets better and all that, but I couldn't stand what I saw of it, which seemed like it was just beautified cliche. There are plenty of other anime out there without mecha or magical girls that manage to tell poignant dramatic and romantic stories a lot better than this, so I really don't understand why Air (and Kanon and CLANNAD for that matter) get the attention they do.

I see Evangelion hate continues to increase in popularity. Personally, I respect the series for its pioneering story and style, as well as enjoying it on the basis of entertainment value. It's not perfect by any measure, but I found that it was suspenseful, emotive and it was one of the first times I came across an entertainment medium that felt so confrontational and intense. Back when I first saw it, the series left quite a big impact. Shinji is fun to detest, but he's a pinnacle example of the anti-hero mold breaking through cliche and conformity. When Evangelion was released it was something that hadn't been done before, something challenging and ambitious that, alongside a few other key titles like SE:Lain vitalised the anime industry for the late 90s and into 2000+. In short, although it may not be the most polished or intelligent anime out there, but at the very least it deserves its clout and some recognition.

For me, AIR was like a breath of fresh air. I had never watched a harem series, and i didnt even realize AIR was a harem series until after i started watching it. I downloaded it because it was on a site wher ei get my anime and since it was 13 episodes i watched it, with no prior knowledge about it. Either way i was so surprised at how much this story moved me. After watching so many shoujo romance stories this one was so different and i fell in love. I thought the story was so sad, and so funny, and even though misuzu's voice annoyed me so much i loved her and how yukito took care of her and stuff. the side characters were also really entertaining and loveable. It's been a while since i've watched the show so i can't say more but i think i liked it so much because it was much different than stuff i had been watching or had watched at the time. oh, and it made me cry like a baby. and shows that can make me do that get more points on my list :P

Air...isn't a harem series.

However, I found the characters to be dull at best and unlikeable at worst, and thought the story was sloppily handled. It looks great and sounds great but ultimately left me empty. Washi already said most of what I think about Air (and Eva too!) so no need to repeat things.

X TV I dropped after 1 DVD worth because I got tired of watching fake-feeling drama and endless feather storms.


Golden Boy is one of the best ecchi comedy out there (alongside Ebichu) so I have to give it a higher rating just for doing what it's supposed to do well. Not going to nominate it though.

I'm going to quote form you directly if you don't mind Washi :)



I'm not going to argue that NGE is popular, or that it deserves classic status. I'm also not going to argue that it helped to revive anime as a medium in other countries. I will however, point out the fact that NGE is not pioneering in story. Style-wise it doeslook different to many mecha anime, but the story is an old one at best, and unfortunately, it was done better in one of Hideaki Anno's earlier works - Top wo Nerae (a.k.a. Gunbuster), and the characterisations in Top wo Nerae beat NGE hands down.

I should also point out that anime as a medium, at least in the UK, had steadily been on the rise since the release of Akira, and the release of NGE did little to spur this steady growth on to greater heights.

You mention that Ikari Shinji is "the pinnacle example of the anti-hero mould breaking through cliche and conformity", but I put it to you that Takaya Noriko from Top wo Nerae actually supercedes this claim by a good seven years. Shinji is always treated as special, whereas Noriko has to work for everything - and she works damn hard for it too. Both characters go through the whole journey of self discovery, and both come out with different views of the world, and different ideas on how to achieve their respective goals. If I had to choose who has thetoughest time though, I would have to go with Noriko (you'll understand if you watch the show).

I said in my previous post that Top wo Nerae is better than NGE. If you watch it then you'll understand why I make this statement. Both are works by Hideaki Anno, but one of the main differences between the two is the use of a deus ex machina plot device in NGE. I refer to the whole mysticism (i.e. kaballah), aspect of the show, which is used partly as a driver for the plot, and partly to justify certain actions being taken. It is, in effect, a get-out clause. Top wo Nerae doesn't rely on any "divine intervention" so the story is actually driven by the characters themselves.

In addition to this, Hideaki Anno challenged the stereotypical view of anime at the time by making the entire last episode of Top wo Nerae in black and white. This gave the finale much more impact and depth of emotion than the previous episodes, and is something he used at times in later works as well because of it's effectiveness in Top wo Nerae. Hideaki Anno took a big risk in making the finale this way, but it paid off in the eyes of many critics, and even received high praise in various Sci-Fi magazines of the day (I remember reading about it at the time it was released).

I'm not meaning to be disrespectful to all the fans of NGE out there. I just believe that all the hype over NGE has removed the focus from Hideaki Anno's truly groundbreaking project - Top wo Nerae.

I think it's a shame that many of the fans of NGE I have spoken to thus far on MAL have either not seen Top wo Nerae, or believe it was released after NGE and is thus the inferior work. This is a shame for a work that many people believe to be solid, character driven Sci-Fi anime at it's best.

I'm not saying NGE was completely horrible - I respect a lot of where it was coming from. It reminds me of the FFVII rage and how there are people who think it's overrated and others who love it a lot. But it was the first FF to not be in 2-D format so of course it was going to cause a 'revolution.' I enjoyed NGE a lot as it was one of the first couple shows I'd seen. I just don't think it's as great as others do.

And Air, Washi said a lot of what I was going to say. I found it pretty bland too. I couldn't connect easily with a lot of the characters (the main one included) and I wasn't too fond of the animation either =/ I'd have to say that the only real thing I enjoyed while watching Air was Haruko and Misuzu's relationship. That one scene at the beach in the end is still engraved in my mind.

I will start out by saying I openly, fervently, detest Air. Tons of Air spoilers ahead.



Whew, glad I got that off my chest.

Golden Boy on the other hand , is the only fanservice focused anime to enter my top 100. It has a surprisingly atypical male lead (think the anti-Keitaro from Love Hina) who is a skilled, intelligent, well traveled, and openly perverted individual. It isn't deep but its a whole lot of fun.

*not so stealth edit*

Evangelion was good, but I liked it better when it was called Ideon. :p