Possibly the most mind-numbingly catchy song of all time. If you haven't listened to it yet, you risk having it stuck in your head for the rest of your life. If you've already heard it, go ahead and feed the addiction. Ah, ah ah ah. Ah, ah ah ah...
ED of the week - Kuru Kururin
Only marginally less catchy than the above song. Which is like comparing heroin to cocaine, really, so same risk applies to listening to this one.
Reacts Violently to: Spiders, Eggplant, Hollywood, Repetitive Annoyance, Linkin Park, Microsoft
Combines Well with: Anime, RPG's, 2D Fighters, Radiohead, Kurt Vonnegut, Psychology, Sci-Fi, Iyashikei
Formula: (6 hours/Day of American public education + 6 Hours/Day of rabid internet use) * 7 years of direct heat. Let cool in university setting.
Detailed Abstract:
I suffer from the terrible paradox of being a hopeless egomaniac and a rabid fanatic. I'll spend hours disparaging the overrated garbage that is FMA, but should you do the same about my Gurren Lagann, be prepared for a duel with honor on the line. Hypocritical? Very much so. It's probably a result of prolonged exposure to 4chan.
There are some eclectic habits and tastes you'll find lurking in my head, if you're around me often enough. I seem to use ellipses far more often than is good or necessary for proper writing. I like yanderes and bishies, but never the two in combination. Eccentric weapons are good, and the more eccentric, the better. If I were to write the plot for an anime, the main character would use Wheat Thins as weapons.
You've probably noticed that I am a follower of the sacred art of button mashing. I enjoy most first party nintendo games, and if you get me into a discussion about good jRPG's (Xenogears, Seiken Densetsu 3, Chrono Trigger), you probably won't escape for hours. I have a penchant for 2D fighters, from good old Street Fighter 2 to more modern classics like guilty gear. Shooters are no good at all. I like to pretend that this is because I stand on moral high ground, but really it's because I'm abysmal at them. If you need some target practice, prop me up in the middle of the stage, give me a controller, and open fire. I'll try not to kill myself too frequently.
My taste in music is terrible. As if I didn't spend enough time devoting my soul to Japanese popular culture, I like to flood my ears with video game and anime soundtracks in my spare time. Mitsuda, Kanno, Iwasaki, Sakuraba, Kikuta... and I've yet to find a song that matches the gloriousness of Kajiura's Canta Per Me. If you pushed me, I suppose I could turn out some more mainstream names. I tend to like bands with a dystopian flavor to them. Radiohead or Nirvana, for example.
I'm also a Lucid Dreamer, though I've somewhat fallen out of practice. If you're unaware of what Lucid Dreaming entails, click here for awesomeness. Once I get active again, I'll post a link to my dream journal. Some of them are pretty interesting... I once had a dream about a Nietzsche x Sartre fanfic. Ya rly.
I like most genres of anime, but I'm pretty stingy when it comes to giving out good ratings. Contrary to popular belief, a 6 is above the halfway mark on the scale from 1-10... in other words, if I gave it a 6, I liked it.
Anyway, obligatory top 10 list + brief plug. Ignore the ordering. I change my preferences too often for it to be set in stone.
Click here for top 10
Kino no Tabi – A shining example of episodic storytelling. Ranges from warm, to nostalgic, to surreal, to terrifying, and does all of them well. The portrayal of human nature is top notch.
Mononoke – If you took a screenshot of each frame, you could make a museum that would shame all others. Superb direction that gets better with each arc. And you know what? Kusuriuri is badass.
Noir – Kajiura. Kajiura, Kajiura, Kajiura. Probably the only good thing Bee Train has done. ever. Incredibly tense and emotional, even if it is absurdly unrealistic.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes - Each character gets so much attention that the story doesn't feel diluted by the obscenely large cast of characters.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – So epic it defies description. If there's another series that makes you scream, “GIGA... DRILL... BREAKER!!!!!” in broken English while watching, I'd like to hear about it.
Haibane Renmei – My favorite series of all time. Slice-of-Life at its very best, with extremely well-developed characters, a soundtrack to kill for (Ko Otani is a genius), and a main character who is just so freaking cute that you can't help falling in love with her. Even if Especially because she is two-dimensional.
Monster – I liked it while I was watching it, but I didn't realize just how brilliant it was until scenes and clips of dialog started floating into my consciousness once or twice a day after I finished the series.
Kanon (2006) – It rips the heart out of your chest, stomps on it, and drags it through the mud. Then it pretends to offer it back to you before laughing and throwing it in a blender. I loved every second.
Death Note – Unlike most other insanely popular series (popular, hah! Just try asking someone on the street if they've heard of Death Note), it manages to be simultaneously enlightening and enthralling. And Light is just so goddamned fun to watch.
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu – Otaku culture parody, pop-philosophy, psuedo-religion, and unparalleled comedy. I submit that there is nothing else one could possibly need. Also, Haruhi is in it.
Other honorable mentions:
Ef ~ a tale of memories – Because I'm a sucker for visual novel adaptations. And shaft.
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (and Zoku) – This is exactly how social commentary should be done. I love the message that crazy people are not as crazy as you would think, and society as a whole is a lot crazier than most people realize. Furthermore, anything influenced by Kafka is automatically awesome.
Toshokan Sensou – Kasahara Iku is amazing. In a medium that lacks strong female characters, she stands out boldly and brightly. Besides, censorship sucks, and any series that is unafraid to point this out earns my approval.
So that's it. Thanks for reading (unless you just skipped to the bottom, in which case, thank you for thinking about reading).
Random friend requests are bad. (Sometimes I accept them though, because I feel bad. You wouldn't want me to pity you, would you?)
Yang is definitely superior, but that's comparing infinities already (aleph-zero: Reuenthal, aleph-one: Yang. In this system Haruhi and Urumi would probably class as aleph-recursive-alepth-self-times).
I think the favourites section should be proportionate to the amount of series you've watched. It's painful to shank favourites just because even more impossibly awesome characters stroll along.
I just re-watched it the other day, still enjoyable. It took me weeks to decipher the numerous culture references, and just concluded it was like south park in that way (many south park references in it too).
Yea psychology easily sucks me in, the human brain is truly the last frontier on earth. Makes me feel like a really lazy explorer, mneh.
Aldous Huxley was a man above the rest, eyes were screwed but could see better than anyone else. I too found Brave New World a little overrated at first, but it developed into one of my favorite pieces of...(non)fiction?
Hey no worries, I enjoy a good read. I was actually going to add a few more things into that original post but didn't want to detract from that question.
I'd have to say everything you said about animation is important to me. Being an avid drawer since before I can remember, art and animation have always been important factors, specifically character design. But as I've grown up in a musical house and played the piano for a large part of my life, I'd have to say music brings a story alive for me (hence the Yoko Kanno favorite, she really is great).
Throw these two in with my history of obsessive reading and you've got my reason for enjoying anime. But I'd have to say I can be a little too subjective at times, I'm constantly ashamed of the 10 I gave FLCL (it really doesn't deserve this), however I can't bring myself to change it. It made mecha it's own, mecha but not mecha. Not only that, but it made me want to learn more about Japanese pop culture (to find out what was going on!).
But my objective ones could include Battle Angel Alita (so many anime have taken from this I had to give it some originality points, mind you it probably recycled past ideas...it was original for me? dammit that makes it subjective! ^_=) or Appleseed(great animation, decent story, shit execution).
That virus in the fridge was classic, I think my flatmate has a mince version at the moment. Is Ghost hound still pretty good?
I just have to ask, in reference to your anime list, should a person's list be subjective (to one's own personal preference) or objective (to the actual quality if the work/anime)?
Thanks for the link! Sadly, since I am using several computers on different locations for my downloading demands, Torrents are kind of cumbersome and limited (that, and I get better speeds from direct downloading, not that it matters much with such massive amounts to get down).
I can still download some episodes each weekday, at least.
Waku waku, waku waku, can't wait to see more. Reuenthal is mai waifu
Great, so I'm temporarily stuck at the exact episode after which the show's going to become, impossibly enough, better?
I won't habeeb it!
That U is totally kosher. In fact, I'd watch it now just for the e-peen boost of having more at "watched", but alas, I have honour and shan't stoop to such motives. Congratulations on the achievement, may it be followed by more shows at U (Utawarerumono? Great for moe overdose).
About azumanga ... maybe it gets better ... but to sit around for more episode waiting for them to just end its kind of painful .. i remember even so it was a bit funny but that cant compensate with the boring state it gets me in ( random stupid cliche humor its not really my taste at all ... my reason for not watching Gintama for example )
About Bleach now ... the character development kind of sux ... true ... but it compensates a little with the side characters ... which are more fun to see and their interaction with the main characters .
Also the " ohh im down ... you normal person who does not know anything should receive superpowers and fight with me / in my place " its boring ... but in bleach its different because of the story ... its not something that you see often like most of the other anime using this pattern .
And i have to admit ... the first arc is stupid ... but once they arrive in soul society it gets better and by the time Ichigo receives his bankai its already starting to feel better ( but Ichigo fails to evolve ... its like he gets his powers ... he kicks ass ... more powerful people come and he gets his ass kicked ... he learns bankai and kicks ass and again more powerful people come and he can barely fight them ... and learns a new trick now ... that's totally stupidly overused and overrated ~ like at some point they say that he can only keep that trick up for like 10 seconds ... but he fights for minutes using it ... totally annoying ~ ) .
The animation does not seem that bad ... Its not really making me twitch when i watch and I've probably seen more worst than this ... also the fights are boring at the start ... they get better once everyone learns/starts to use " special tricks " .
The sound is truly lacking like you said ... out of like 17 op's and ed's or so .. i only like @ 3-4 maybe ... and the scene music is repetitive like you said but some do fit well ( like the song used when ichigo is in the world of his mind/sword ) .
Also the fillers are not that bad ... compared to other fillers like those from naruto for example ... and the main story is interesting ...
One thing that bugs me a lot its the so called Soul Society ... not realistic at all ... like its the place where souls come ... but the souls of all the people in the world / time end up in that town ?!
The sense of humour that is used probably ... the few episodes i saw all i did when watching it was wonder when it will end the episode ... that in my book is truly worth a low grade ... also the characters seemed interesting but for some reason they were to stiffy like they wanted to interact with others but they only did it like robots or something like that .. nothing was spontaneous since it was in their job description to do what they did ... or something like that ... ( but i dont remember to well also since i saw it more then an year ago and on stream which now i consider a bad experience to stream )
So now i should say something like my turn right ?
Hey, what's up! ^^ And no, not lately.. D: I'm watching a ton of things but really spaced out..because of school. I dunno though--I feel like I'm always missing something so I jump off to a new anime. I got caught up on Xam'd recently, but I'm not really into it like I want to be. What about you?
The pain of waiting adds a certain bittersweet tinge, I'd say. I think there might be more chapters out though - SC scanlate, for example, Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer too (a great one by the way - recommended), and have only got to the first of four - I think - published volumes. So with some luck something similar is true for Franken Fran too *dreams*
I agree - Fran dispells all images of Boris Karloff from my head, it's all moe and awesomely nontraditional ethical thinking.
