The Official Anime & Manga Thread Vol: 三

jays25 jays25 Excellent review of Wing! There is something special about re-watching animes for the nostalgia but then also realizing it was simply a damn good show. I remember watching the late night uncut version on Toonami. When Heero told Treize he didn't believe in God that blew my mind as a kid. I didn't know you could say that on TV. Was hooked then I discovered Cowboy Bebop.. maaan it was over after that :lol:. It was either Ballad of Fallen Angels or Black Dog Serenade being the first episode I saw. Became a Bebop fiend and it holds the #1 spot for me.
 
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I'm still pissed at Treize going out like a chump against Wufei. Wufei may have been the worst character, ideals wise and dude even went more off the rails in Endless Waltz. He was the only Gundam pilot whose actions didn't make any sense
 
s0leFUNK said:
jays25 jays25 Excellent review of Wing! There is something special about re-watching animes for the nostalgia but then also realizing it was simply a damn good show. I remember watching the late night uncut version on Toonami. When Heero told Treize he didn't believe in God that blew my mind as a kid. I didn't know you could say that on TV. Was hooked then I discovered Cowboy Bebop.. maaan it was over after that :lol:. It was either Ballad of Fallen Angels or Black Dog Serenade being the first episode I saw. Became a Bebop fiend and it holds the #1 spot for me.
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Yeah, I remember Bebop being great. I primarily decided to watch it again because one of my friends loves the series, also calling it his all time favorite, and talks about it on a regular basis. I enjoyed it, but never ranked it above Dragon Ball or Ruroni Kenshin, so I decided it'd be good to watch it again and see if its better than I remember.

If nothing else, it was the first anime I watched that took place in space, but didn't feature any Gundam-style machines. It was closer to Star Wars or Star Trek, with a crew just travelling around.

Tdogg2k said:
Dang now i gotta go back and watch wing. My adult mind may perceive it better
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Never a bad idea. I feel like there are always things you'll catch as an adult that you missed or didn't understand as a kid/teen. Gundam is a franchise full of entries that could fall into that area, because most of them I think are mature enough that some concepts are either too mature or political for kids to really pay attention to when they just want to see a beam saber battle :lol:


blakep267 said:
I'm still pissed at Treize going out like a chump against Wufei. Wufei may have been the worst character, ideals wise and dude even went more off the rails in Endless Waltz. He was the only Gundam pilot whose actions didn't make any sense
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Yeah, there were a good 10 episodes or so where Wufei was randomly flying around space and just destroying any mobile suit he came across, talking about justice and integrity and ****. Son low key sounded like a maniac. Remember liking him so much more when I was a kid. Still like him more than Quatre though :smh: And Shenlong/Ultron will always be a dope Gundam.
 
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blakep267 said:
I'm still pissed at Treize going out like a chump against Wufei. Wufei may have been the worst character, ideals wise and dude even went more off the rails in Endless Waltz. He was the only Gundam pilot whose actions didn't make any sense
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THIS. If you subtracted Wufei from the entire story, nothing would change at all. Always happy to see him getting washed by Treize. 
 
shokugeki no souma is creeping up in my top 5 mangas.
May also be because of my love for cooking.
but it makes me laugh, keeps me on the edge of my seat. has me rooting for people I love multiple characters. its awesome imo
 
anyone heard of a manga called red storm?

it is 
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I dont know of I posted this already or not, but here's the summer lineup.
http://anichart.net/summer

There are quite a few things I am looking forward to this summer.

Berserk :pimp:
91 Days sounds good
D-Gray Man :pimp:
Both Danganronpa series
handa-kun :pimp:
Shokugeki no Souma S2 :pimp:
Taboo Tatoo sounds intriguing as well.
[COLOR=#red]Kingsglaive[/COLOR] :pimp:
[COLOR=#red]Kizumonogatari [/COLOR]:pimp: :pimp:
[COLOR=#red]One Piece Film Gold[/COLOR] :pimp:


I also didn't know that:
RE: Zero is gonna be 25 episodes
Sousei no Onmyouji is gonna be 50 episodes :wow:
Diamond is Unbreakable is gonna have 39 episodes (part 5 confirmed? :nerd: )
 
Can't believe some one decided to chop onions while Re Zero was on this week :smh:

Should have microwaved them first.

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Opening

Good thing I already decided to watch After War Gundam X this week too, because Cowboy Bebop only took me 2 days :lol: I watched this show as a kid on Adult Swim (Long after my parents thought I was sleeping :lol: ), but it wasn't in order. I remember that the first episode I saw Vicious in already made it seem like we were supposed to know who he was and I was confused as hell. Thankfully they played so many re-runs that I eventually got the full picture. Similar to Dragon Ball this is a series that you can tell inspiried so many others that ended up coming after it. Maybe most recently you've got Space Dandy (Which isn't too surprising given that that series is made by the same studio that did Bebop) and you know I watched the first 12 episodes of Space Dandy when it came out, couldn't get into it. There were a few gems in there, but the tone mostly didn't do it for me, and after marathoning Cowboy Bebop so quickly I now see why. I wanted Space Dandy to be Cowboy Bebop, which, as much as it takes from the series, is impossible. Bebop ***** all over Space Dandy as far as i'm concerned. Space Dandy basically takes the premise of Bebop, but takes itself far less seriously, which is something a lot of people might enjoy, but again just didn't really work for me.

Two Crucial Elements

There are two things about this series that make it work for me above all else. One, the main cast. This is that classic random group of people coming together and becoming a team cliche at its finest (Though back in the late 90s it might not have been as big a cliche in anime as it is now, not too sure). And these random people all just work as a unit. They probably shouldn't, but their differing personalities mesh well. I feel like a lot of female characters afterwards might've been based on Faye, the woman who really does away with a lot of stereotypes commonly associated with women. Loud, somewhat lazy, greedy, violent...you know those might actually be stereotypes people associate with women nowadays :lol: Point being, she's a great character that stands as an equal with Spike and Jet. You can tell they're friends, but on any random episode they might be competing for a bounty or working together to claim it, with Faye being just as likely to try screwing the other two over at the end of the day. Yet they still tolerate her and Jet lets her return to his ship at any time, no matter how much he complains (In fact, now that I think about it, Faye is probably partially based on Fujiko from Lupin lll) . Then there's Ed....I'll say that I didn't remember her being as, well, crazy as she actually is. There's barely anything she says that makes sense and I actually find her to be the weakest character of the main cast, but that's because her character lends itself to that Space Dandy tone and humor, also being slightly more serious. She's mostly there for comedy relief and, notably, disappears right before the finale when things get 100% serious/tragic. I still like her though and had there been a second season/sequel would absolutely have wanted her back, along with Ein.

So the second thing about this series that makes it work, that makes it a classic, is the soundtrack. I mean, Cowboy Bebop might have the greatest soundtrack in anime history. It is certainly one of the most memorable. It's really not something that I can explain, but everyone that's seen the series will know what i'm talking about. The series is honestly worth watching just to hear the soundtrack, especially if you're a fan of jazz. Now that we've moved beyond the era of CD's and tapes I was using the Shazam app on my phone to keep track of various pieces of music so that I could go and download them later. This is what technology was meant for. :smokin

Genre and Plot

In terms of genre they really did something amazing by blending classic westerns, gritty noir, and then threw in a gangster/Yakuza style element to the plot as well. And this is an action/adventure style series that's taking place in space of all places. Another combination that probably shouldn't work, wouldn't work if you had anyone less talented trying it out, but it does work in the end and anime as a whole is better off for it. I enjoy anime that have a cohesive story, where the entire plot is being built up and expanded upon over time, but that's not what you get with Bebop. Instead you have a story where the majority of the episodes aren't connected at all. I'll say that I have to give it to the creative team, because something like that seems so much more difficlt to me in terms of concept and of course you see it with a lot of cartoons like Spongebob and The Fairly Oddparents (Adventure Time was also a lot like this early on). The team has to have an idea for where they're going in the long run, but at the same time has to be telling these individual stories. And while they're doing this they have to expand on the pasts of the 3 main characters every now and again as well. And at the end of the series you really don't know everything about any of the characters. Faye remembers her past, but that just leads to her finding her old home is a ruin now. Spike finds Julia and goes to fight Vicious, but we learn nothing major that we didn't already know. Jet finds out his partner betrayed him, but a good number of details about his past as a cop remain a mystery.

Furthermore, we never learn how Spike and Jet met or how either came to be bounty hunters. We never learn about Faye really, her family or history beyond getting into an accident. And we never learn much about the relationship between Spike and Vicious, like how it started to begin with when they were working together. At the same time, there's a good deal of information that you'll be given in this quiet noir-style scenes, such as Faye's space accident, Jet's girlfriend leaving him (Though that i'll say you do see him talk about when he confronts her), and Spike's entire relationship with Julia. Similar to Gundam Wing it's a style that I think might not necessarily be perfect and that some people might resent a little for not giving more detail, but that's clearly what the production team wanted. It's also nothing new in anime. Sometimes you really just don't need to know everything there is to know about these guys to enjoy an excellent story. They were even a little on the nose with this in fact, because in the last episode Faye points out that Spike's never talked about his past before and how out of character it is for him to do so now.

My Favorite Antagonist in the Series

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Then there's this guy, this sick son of a ***** right here. Fully admit that this guy scared the hell out of me as a kid :smh: Hated anything resembling clowns and had nightmares for days. Still find him creepy as hell now, but that was the entire point of him after all and I really have to give it to the production team. From his design, mannerisms, and backstory they already put a good deal of effort into perfecting him to get a specific reaction from viewers. Setting his final confrontation with Spike in an amusement park, in the middle of the night, while the park's music is playing and the lights are on was really just a stroke of genius. That stands as a Top 5 episode in this series, no question. Really it might be the perfect episode ot give people if they're interested in the series (Along with the fridge episode :lol: ). All of it blends together perfectly to really just make the encounter stand apart from anything else in the series. I'll even say he's my favorite villain/antagonist in the series, even over Vicious. My only real regret from it is that we didn't get to see him as a villain in another episode, though in that case he also might not have been as effective as he is.

My Least Favorite Character in the Series

Looking back over the series, between now and when I watched it as a kid, Julia is such a weak character. Really her entire purpose is to be the girl Spike lost and you never get much more from her. It wouldn't be too bad if she was a main, because then you'd get to see her go on 20 + adventures. But since she isn't she's really just teased, comes in at the 11th hour, and swiftly dies. Can't speak for anyone else, but I felt nothing about her death when I originally watched the series and I didn't feel anything now. If anything, I kind of just wanted them to kill her off so the plot could move along. Typically not big into shipping, but Faye's a much better character in every way (Then again, she's also a main character). Really just even in comparison to Faye's backstory, with her lost memories, and Jet's as a cop, Julia is the weakest element as far as the backstories of the 3 leads go. As I mentioned previously you also don't get much about Vicious in this, but he at least has some real character traits and is given a kind of storyline, because whenever he appears it's clear that he's trying to take over the Red Dragons, which he eventually manages to do before Spike comes after him to end things. Julia's just some girl who really doesn't stand out much. The most important thing about her is the way Spike feels about and reacts to her.


All of that being said, Bebop, just like Gundam Wing, is a better series now than it was when I was a kid. Unlike Wing it isn't because of any politics that I ignored or didn't grasp. Rather, I just have a greater appreciation for the music, the art style, the way the characters mesh, and every other aspect of the series than I did when I was younger. It's the type of series that when you step back and look at it you realize that the team really put a lot of love and effort into this work (Batman the Animated Series has the same feeling). It's never been a series that i've considered on a Top 5 or a Top 10 list of anime, but I think it's (And for me I consider this to be more importan than anything else) a series that if someone placed it on such a list you wouldn't be shocked. You couldn't be angry at that person. Like, if someone mentioned Pokemon (any series/season) as the greatest anime of all time or placed it on their Top 5 list you might look at them a little funny and need an explanation as to why, along with a six page research paper with sources properly cited for reference. Someone mentions Bebop however and you just nod your head in understanding. It might not be on your list because of some other series you've seen or because you have a specific genre you tend to lean towards, but you can still see why someone would choose it, because the series is so good. Really glad I watched it again, because i'm a huge fan of space as a setting (More than likely because of Star Wars), but the typical series in space I watch is one featuring Gundams. This is good for more of a Star Wars/Trek type vibe, while still being completely unique in every major way. I still have After War Gundam X to watch this week, but I might consider re-watching Samurai Champloo next week now that i've run through Bebop. It's also 26 episodes and would allow me to watch a second series next week as well.

"I'm not going there to die. I'm going to find out if i'm really alive."

I mean that's just a badass line no matter how you look at it, even better than the iconic "Bang" to me. :smokin
 
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As for me I finished the Neon Genesis Evangelion series and the first two Rebuild movies. Shinji is my favorite character. 
 
^ you might want to spoiler that bomb there. :lol:
I feel like Eren might turn him into a titan to save his life.
 
Re: Zero , Dragonball and Boku no Hero episodes were 
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Glad to see my dude Subaru making progress, Deku getting ahold on his power, and Future Trunks makin a comeback 
 
The voice actor who played roy in FMA died. Someone posted the pic of roy crying....
Put me in my feels all over again
 
Bleach

Why show us something awesome and then immediately take it away in the next panel? :lol:
 
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