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You do remember that the whole country believed that Chagum was dead, why would anyone care if there was a woman spear wielder with a child walking around unless they were one of the privileged few who knew the truth.

True as far as Chagum goes, but according to the official story, Balsa was the criminal responsible for setting the fire and killing him. Considering the anime didn't show any other women warriers I just couldn't help but wonder how prevalent Kanbal spearwomen are. Not to mention that back in the day policing was a lot more authoritarian and willing to step on toes so I figure any Kanbal women would have been hassled and checked out anyway.

I have to agree with BlackMagic on that point. They made efforts to make sure other foreigners looked foreign by giving them blond hair, tans, etc.

Putting Balsa in a crowd of people from the village where she and Chagum were hiding makes her stand out because of her height, her tan, and her hair colour. The fact that she carries a bloody great big spear kinda tips the balance.

Gedo senki was done by miyazaki's son, and it was his first film. that being said it's understandable why it wasn't the "ghibli" movie everyone expected. Miyazaki gave the project to his son in hopes that he would take over the the "family buisness" of holding up the miyazaki name, and from what i've read the son was never really too enthusiastic about making films. I was shocked when he even agreed to take over the Gedo Senki project because from articles I had read he seemed really against becoming the next "miyazaki"

anyway.

The reason I voted "no" for Haruhi surpasses the fact that I didn't really like it. There are shows i didn't like that I would vote onto here in a heartbeat (such as cowboy bebop and evangelion). But I personally don't really think that haruhi has a good enough storyline, and to me it seemed like it was a lot of random filler-esque moments with fanservice and pretty animation. If the story were more cohesive then I probably would have said that it was a show worth saying "yes" to. But when an anime doesnt have good plot or character development I don't see the "masterpiece" factor of it. I would say more but I already posted what i felt in the Haruhi spotlight thread.

I heard different stories than that. I believe Goro, Hayao's son, was approached by someone else from Ghibli. Hayao was angered by his acceptance of the proposal because he felt that Goro was not ready or did not have the talent (or for some other reason) to direct an anime himself. But, that's just what I remember reading.

Wow, i didn't know that . well, i had read articles before gedo senki came out that miyazaki expected him to take over the family business at some point, but i didn't know that someone else had gone to him with the project o.o but yeah, i just wikid it and you're right. i guess its just been a while since i read the articles and i mixed things up haha. ^^;

Haruhi no Yuutsu - no
Reason : Too popular, well there's a lot of good unpopular series out there, give them more chance than give it to Haruhi again. Personally I enjoyed watch Haruhi, like the OP and ED.

Itoshii Hito from Seirei no Moribito Ending Theme, anyone liked it too?

I must be one of the few who actually liked the prince in seirei no moribito, he wasnt another of those nosy brats, he was very normal actually after the shock from royal life to commoners he adapted well and did his part, balsa is a good character but she doesnt change much, I liked the way she didnt talk much but still convey what needs to be said, it shortens the show alot skiping episodes purely for characterization.
About the scene in town I believe the spearwomans were actually normal as mentioned it was a poor city with lots of warriors and the anonimity in the crowd is more then a theory, its simply reality, a normal person always thinks that all the exciting events are never right next to them, its like avian flu for example, everyone heard of it but most dont care and just think: "it wont come here".

On the popularity subject I believe a show like Naruto and Bleach suffer both from the hype and the haters, I cant deny both were great shows on their first arcs, compared to other shonens and even anime in general they had great animation/soundtracks and overall production value, with time they suffered from the fillers, lack of imagination from the creator, budget cuts, etc, etc.. but what can we learn from this? is rating a show or character from half of it really wise? One piece is a steady long running show and I think its ok to rate it, but naruto and bleach have big flaws in the later episodes, wait for the end or not? thats the question.
For example if naruto was airing now around 80th episode I believe everyone would be able to see how good it is, but since we seen the crap it went trough its no longer possible.
Leaving long running shows out of the equation might be a bit harsh tho, who knows when a show like detective conan is gonna end? If it runs for so long its because its highly popular. Doesnt that mean its in the upper echelons of their respective medium? or were trying to set a difference between popularity and quality? and how do we define quality? Were going into a grey area here and u cant make 100+ ppl agree to a single solution, whatever happens there will be always those who disagree and are left out.

As I said, it wasn't a bad idea. It's just that the execution was very crude. They could have credited the viewer with inteliigence by subtly suggesting what you said (i.e. "it won't come here"), rather than clubbing us in the face with it.

As for popularity vs quality, you're right about it being a grey area. However, one thing has already been proved in this club - just because it's popular, or displays good quality, does not mean it will automatically make it onto the relations list, and it does not follow that long running shows are automatically in the upper echelons either. As with any long running TV show, by the 3rd or 4th season you'll start to see a lot of repetitions creeping in, and the quality of the show takes a drastic downturn. No matter how good the first two or three seasons are, you'll mainly keep watching out of habit more than anything else. Naruto Shippuden is a case in point. Many people I've spoken to hate it with a passion (and these are diehard Naruto fans), however they still watch it religiously becuase it's a habit.

It doesn't really matter how long the show runs for to gauge the quality of it. If it runs for at least 26 episodes then I'd say the viewer has a fair idea as to the quality of the show by that point, and is in a good position to judge the show on that basis. Long running shows don'r get left out of the equation, it's just that people don't nominate them becuase they're not viewed as being anything special.

I think the popularity vs quality is pretty much the same issue we touched on with the objective grading vs enjoyment discussion. I forget what thread we talked about this in...it may have been this one lol.

Ideally, I think we would want to objectively dissect an anime and arrive at a rating between 1 and 10. Then we could use our enjoyment factor to curve it up or down by maybe 1 or even 2 points.

Realistically, I don't think many people are capable of doing this and I think many people are going to rate more on enjoyment than true critic opinion. Like I've mentioned, we watch anime because we enjoy it. We aren't career critics getting paid to watch stuff. This means that most of the anime we've completed are shows we enjoyed and most people would probably drop most other things.

But this is why it's possible to resurrect shows that failed to make the grade. I would much rather set the bar high and allow shows second chances rather than easily accept shows and then have no way to remove them from the relations list. So far I think the club is doing a pretty good job and is headed in a good direction.

to Archaen: I dont think it was crude, the show treats the viewer as smart most of the time, thats why the dialogues are short, except when explaining the whole mystics around the prince the chars keep to themselves and we still get alot that hasnt been said, loved that in the show and I think the little display in the market was allright, it was used to set a difference between balsa and the shaman apprentice (i dont remember name) a pure characterization disguised on a "funny" moment.

to Blackmagic: I participated briefly in that enjoyment discussion and i try to use enjoyment as a wildcard like I mentioned before, i can give it all bad rates and a 9 in enjoyment exactly why u described and either I try to be a critic and stay neutral it will affect my overall score but from experience I know that overall score is gonna drop after a year or a rewatch because the part influentiated by the enjoyment is no longer there, shows get boring at second time or theres just new better alternatives out there. What to do? come back and change the score? leave it that way? or the third option: Rate overall without taking enjoyment in account and that would be a critic score, impartial to you personal feelings. It all depends on what you want your score to reflect, your personal taste or the so called professional critic score, wich is in practic impossible to achieve every single time by humans =D
The club aims to achieve it, the impartial judge who rates good shows despite personal opinion. A task impossible to complete but it is going better then most clubs, thats for sure, and Im here for the ride.

True, the show treated it's viewers as intelligent for the most part, but that's what I mean by "crude". That scene stuck out like a sore thumb for being far too obvious an attempt at justification, when in truth most of us would have already surmised the situation for ourselves. It wasn't necessary in other words.

It was from the point of view of the shaman, who was wondering why she was so relaxed, it just served to show him as a carefree guy. It wasn't completely out of context so I can live with it.

Aye, that is true, but the fact is he is a shaman,, and as someone with that kind of background he should already be aware of how people will react to certain situations. At the very least he wouldn't have needed any of it explaining to him, and he would have understood why Balsa was so relaxed. That's why I called it crude.

Well it's not like she thinks through her actions anyway. Remember what happened when she decided to have a martial arts match with that guy at the festival? Brash to say the least, but at least they showed the consequences.

As I had suspected, there was quite a different result for the Akira poll after I made the new one and reminded people that they were voting for the manga, not the anime. I hope that the hand counted poll did not turn away potential "yes" or "no" voters because of the lack of anonymity, but I really felt I had no other choice when at the time it appeared that we had 7 votes coming from people who had never even picked up the series.

As for Guts...
I am incredibly happy he passed and made it into our lists, however he was riding the razor's edge the entire time. I attribute the high number of "no" vote he received to members who have never had the privilege of seeing Guts outside of the very very very limited perspective provided by the Anime. Hopefully in 6 months I can get more of our members to pick up the Berserk manga... and also the FMP novels cause I am determined to resurrect Sousuke and get him in our lists.

I would have been very very disappointed if Guts didn't make it onto the list. This is not only due to how amazingly developed he is, but then on top of that, if he didn't make it while others like Balsa did...my brain possibly would have exploded in my skull.

On another note I'm glad to see Tsuiokuhen make it since it is a great watch and I think the fact it's somewhat short helped grease the wheels. I've only seen the anime version of Akira, so I had to vote "haven't read" though personally I think the anime is qualified as well. If the manga is even better then that's cased closed to me.

I'd have to agree there BlackMagic. The anime version of Akira was top notch, and aside from the dodgy 80's hairdo's, the artwork and animation would easily stand up to many of todays efforts. The characters aren't the best compared to some other animes, but at the time they were amazingly well realised, especially for a movie. The music and sound were excellent throughout as well.

Akira managed to create on of anime's most iconic images as well - the picture of Kaneda walking to his bike (and what a bike - I still want one like it). It also managed to kick open the door to the western market, making anime far more accessible.

I think I'll be voting for the anime next time the nominations come around.

I'll put it this way: I liked the anime version of Akira. It doesn't even compare to the manga. They did a decent job of cramming what they could into an appropriate movie length, but they had to change a lot and completely leave out even more.

Sounds like what happened to Battle Angel Alita.