Dagger

One thing I forgot to note earlier: FUNimation was unable to get the rights to the first opening song, "7:00 News," so the second opening, "Ultra Relax," is going to be used for all 102 episodes. Moreover, the lead singer of the band behind 7:00 News has a cameo in the first episode, and the song itself pops up from time to time; because they weren't allowed to have the singer's name mentioned or to play the song itself at any point, Funi had to implement a couple of audio drop-outs. I believe these affect the next episode previews as well. This would never have been a make-or-break issue for me, but I have to commend the company for their honesty about it. They made it known many months in advance, and also included a small explanation of the drop-outs on the DVD itself. Some of the dub dialogue has been toned down (in a manner similar to the toning down of Kaleido Star's dub script) here and there, i.e. when Sana refers to Rei as her pimp and when the gay hairdresser comments about him. If I'm not mistaken, though, she did call him her pimp in episode 4--it was a very swift & passing bit of dialogue, but I'm taking it to mean that they won't change every single instance of it, which is nice. I can't honestly complain, as the dub is perfect in virtually every other respect, and I really, really hope they somehow manage to get Kodocha on TV. In case you haven't guessed, I loved the remainder of the disc. The story is moving along much faster than I had expected, which is great. ~Dagger~

Wow, I had no idea that the main skin had changed. That's what I get for using Geisha, I suppose. At any rate, I completely agree. I like this version of Liquid a whole lot better than the old one--I may even switch over to it for a while, should the fancy strike me. It's very snazzy. EDIT: Good heavens, I [i]love[/i] the new Edit/Reply buttons. :animestun ~Dagger~

Thoughts on Chapter 70: I love the color artwork--it features what is probably my favorite picture of Light thus far (he looks serious rather than overly psychotic, which makes for a nice change of pace). Near doesn't come off quite so well, haha, but Mello looks great. I do have to wonder where he got his taste in clothes, not to mention whether or not [spoiler]the gun is just for show.[/spoiler] On a different note, [spoiler]poor Misa. Right after Light proposes to her, he considers killing her. I think she's sharper than she seems, but I'm not sure if she has any idea how cold-hearted he really is. She appears to be the kind of person who would rather stay happily deluded than face the truth.[/spoiler] And Chapter 71: More great color artwork! Including Misa in her bustier. :animeblus [spoiler]With Light's plotting, this chapter started to feel more like the early part of the series, at least to me. I simply love the plan he concocted for Matsuda and Misa. I also admired how Misa carried it out--she definitely is much more intelligent than she normally acts. The twist at the end (with Light's dad deciding to get the eyes, instead of Matsuda) was well-set up. Things are moving faster now, and I'm raising my expectations for the rest of the arc accordingly.[/spoiler] Lastly, Chapter 72: [spoiler]Over the course of the manga, it's been shown time and again that Light's father (and the rest of his family as well, I suppose) is pretty much the only person he even comes close to genuinely caring about. It was always a given that he'd just use Misa, but there's been a long build-up to him starting to actually use his own dad in such a blatant way. I think this represents another big slide downward for Light.[/spoiler] What a big cliffhanger at the end, too. I'm dying to know what happens next. ~Dagger~

[QUOTE=Otaku America][COLOR=Navy] Funi licensed Basilisk!!?? Another anime butchered. Basilisk is a syck-ninja anime and it's now licensed by Funi, the studio responsible for releasing edited versions of DBZ? Where's Geneon when you need em?[/COLOR] :animecry:[/QUOTE] There's no need to live in the past. All of FUNimation's recent (and many of their not-so-recent) releases have been on par with Geneon's in virtually every regard. They tend to have more/better on-disc extras than Geneon, too. I couldn't be happier with their plans for other GONZO anime like Samurai 7 (they're mirroring the R2 release in all respects other than price and disc count), and I'm confident that they'll treat their latest acquisitions with equal care. ~Dagger~

I really liked the first episode; it was pretty stylish and had just the right amount of action. Subsequent episodes bored me, though--the writers continued mucking around with (annoying and cliched) side stories instead of plunging straight into the main plot. The art bothers me because I love the character designs, but they aren't always executed quite as well as they could be. I might give the show another look when FUNimation brings it out on DVD; for now, however, I can't say I feel as though I'm missing much. Especially when there's much better GONZO fare to sample, like Basilisk (also licensed by Funi). ~Dagger~

[QUOTE=r2vq]Wow, Dagger, I thought you didn't like Naruto... something about 'no matter how much eye shadow somebody has' XP And... what do you mean by rerun and time slot? Was this broadcasted? But yeah, it was the Neji battle that DDG was talking about.[/QUOTE] I was in Japan recently (just got home last night, as a matter of fact), so that's why I was able to see it on TV. And no, I still don't care for Naruto, but it makes for decent background viewing while I'm drying my hair. :animesmil ~Dagger~

Hm... this might fit under the umbrella of the other recent editing thread, but I'll leave that up to Solo's discretion. Please don't spread false information. [b]4Kids does not have the license to Naruto[/b]--and if they did, it would air on Fox rather than CN. Viz Entertainment is the company which has licensed the series. The individual DVDs will be edited, but the box sets will be uncut & bilingual. I don't think it's particularly difficult to predict 4Kids' future activity, haha. They're never going to target the niche fan market--that's just not where the real money lies, at least from their perspective. They've made their position on the matter pretty clear, as far as I'm concerned. FUNimation was allowed to produce uncut DVDs of a couple of their series, but I believe that all of those were releases have been stalled or stopped altogether. Also, [b]IceRose[/b], I'm going to have to disagree with you there. One Piece didn't exactly do well in the ratings, but financially I'm sure they're quite secure. If anything, their strategy will leave them far better off than many of the fan favorite companies who may lack the resources to continue struggling through the current market slump. Does this make me happy? No, but it's the way things are. ~Dagger~

I just got volume 1 + the Babbit box in the mail. Kodocha is the first new (well, new to R1) show I wanted to watch after my absence, and I'm [i]so[/i] glad I picked it. I was planning to see the full disc before posting, but the beginning episode alone has me so giddy that I just have to say something about it. The artbox is a nice, slick piece--probably a little too purple for some, but I like the inside artwork and the crazy Sana on the back. It's a fold-out style similar to the one FUNimation used for the Fruits Basket box set. Also worth noting is that it comes with a Babbit purse/bag--which is pretty unisex in terms of design, though still cute. The disc itself has a nice peppy cover, and I like the menus as well. Basically, Funi has given Kodocha a wonderful release in terms of packaging and such. Yet that's not all, of course. Kodocha has incredibly good word of mouth, and I'm starting to discover why. The first episode had me laughing hysterically, frozen to my seat with excitement and even feeling nostalgic. As I say frequently, I don't like most comedic anime, but I found myself left in stitches about every five minutes. The animation is quite good, despite the show's age, and the character designs are nice too. It's kind of cool to see something cel-animated (hand-painted, that is) coming out alongside far more recent anime. Akitaroh Daichi's brand of humor really shines through; I'd recommend this show high and low regardless, assuming it keeps up its level of quality, but those who enjoyed the comedy in Fruits Basket and Jubei-Chan should have an extra incentive to give Kodocha a look. Well, I'm off to finish volume 1. Kodocha just leapt straight to the top of my purchasing pile. :animesmil EDIT: One more thing--the dub is quite simply one of the best dubs I've ever heard. I'm planning to watch it subbed as well, but I really encourage people to at least give the dub a cursory listen. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to produce (you know, with all the hyperness, not to mention Sana's rapping). ~Dagger~

I ended up buying the British version of HBP at Narita Airport and reading it on the plane back. It went by surprisingly quickly, even for a Harry Potter book--I had counted on it lasting me most of the flight, and we had barely crossed the International Date Line when I finished. Ah well. I've skimmed many of the posts in this thread, but I haven't read all of them in-depth, and I apologize for that. Nevertheless, I figured I'd make a few comments. Plot & Voldie: [spoiler]I had some issues with the overall structure. I thought the plot was more veiled in secrecy than it needed to be, particularly in regards to Malfoy's actions; I would have appreciated a greater focus on Malfoy's internal struggles. One part that rang slightly false to me was the scene between Malfoy and Dumbledore at the end--while I appreciated the dramatic context, I thought Malfoy's explanations of how he had pulled it off seemed a bit forced (i.e. all too obviously inserted at that point for the purpose of edifying the reader) and too detective story-esque. Basically, I felt that JKR tried to tie up the mystery aspects of the plot in the same way as she had in previous books, such as POA--however, the goals & storyline in this book were quite different, so I think she should have doled out the revelations in some other fashion. At some point about three-quarters of the way through the book, it occurred to me that very little had happened. At the same time, I felt that the book could have been improved by being longer. I'm not wholly sure if that makes sense, haha. One thing that particularly bothered me was Voldemort's noticeable absence, flashbacks aside. Don't get me wrong--I thought the parts about his childhood were by far some of the best segments in the book. However, this is the only installment of the HP series, as far as I remember, in which the man himself has not made an appearance. To me, that made the conflict between Death Eaters and Muggles & regular wizards seem less immediate and less real/urgent than it would have been if she at least gave us a glimpse of Voldemort orchestrating things from behind the scenes. It's far more compelling to see him interacting with other characters than to simply have people talk about him a lot, even though much was revealed about his background, and the concept of Horcruxes kicks ass in so many ways. I suppose this comes back to my point about length--at times I almost had the feeling that I was receiving a synopsis of the book rather than the book itself, due to the fact that so many important things were summarized rather than shown.[/spoiler] Relationships & sap: [spoiler]I'm slightly taken aback by all the accusations of sappiness, i.e. in Ginny & Harry's break-up scene and in the ending in general. While the romance is something new, the HP series has always had that type of "sap." If anything, it's more necessary now because the books have gotten so much darker. As for the romance--Lupin/Tonks felt [i]extremely[/i] contrived to me. I'm not objecting to this as a slash fangirl, haha--and it doesn't matter anyway, since Sirius has kicked the bucket--but I felt that both Lupin and Tonks were somewhat minimized as characters by being thrown together with virtually no real visible development of the relationship. I know many fans feel differently, but I would have appreciated an all or nothing approach to the whole romance thing--either spend a lot of time making the relationship believable and sympathetic, or leave it to the fanfic writers. Obviously there are cases in which this doesn't have to hold true--Bill/Fleur was executed perfectly, as far as I'm concerned. I could honestly hug JKR for what she did with Fleur.

The trailer makes the movie look pretty awesome, if you ask me. Amusingly, I watched NMBC when I was a kid and it [i]freaked me out[/i]--so much so that I turned it off three-fourths of the way through and have to this day felt rather leery about seeing it in full. Then again, I also lost sleep over Watership Down. :p At any rate, Corpse Bride is definitely going to be quite different from all the Nemo/Incredibles/etc. stuff out there, and that's cool as far as I'm concerned. ~Dagger~

Well, Requiem from the Darkness (aka Hundred Stories) is hardly a high-profile release. I'd be surprised if many other people here have seen/heard of it. Anyway, I agree that the OP sequence (and the ED, too--a prime example of classy fanservice) is excessively cool. I bought the first disc back when it originally came out, but while I found it interesting enough, it didn't grab me as much as it should have. I was deliberately looking for something with the darkness and episodic-ness of a show like Kino's Journey or Boogiepop Phantom; in retrospect, though, it's possible that at the time I was actually somewhat burned out in regards to anime of that type. I loved the visuals, at any rate. I don't recall the actual animation being particularly good, but the use of color & etc. gave the episodes I watched a nice sense of atmosphere. I'm planning to pick up the remaining three discs at some point in the future. However, newcomers to Requiem from the Darkness may want to note that Geneon has already released a digipak collection for the series. It won't save you huge amounts of money, but it will save space. ~Dagger~

[QUOTE=BasouKazuma]Hahahha, i thought this was about the anime 'Now and Then, Here and There', especially since the show just started airing on the International channel. :animeswea Might want to rephrase the title ... whatever, carry on.[/QUOTE] So did I. I've been coveting that series for a while. I believe it would help if the original poster specified more explicitly what s/he wants this thread to cover. For example, it's not clear whether the "revolution" referred to in the starting post is the increasing awareness of anime in America & elsewhere overseas, or simply the rise of anime in Japan (which would have taken place in a rather different era, too). ~Dagger~

[quote name='Kato_Ama][spoiler']Another thing that made me think Ryuuzaki wasn't L was that in the first chapters with scenes of L, he looks similar, but also very different with hair color/style and the way he moved too.[/spoiler][/quote] Yeah, I've seen a lot of speculation like that. I think there are three possible conclusions we can draw from the discrepancy (which is really too noticeable to be discarded as mere chance)--either [spoiler]1) the artist simply hadn't finalized L's character design, 2) it was meant to increase the reader's shock when the bizarre and deliberately uncool L/Ryuuzaki was fully revealed, or 3) L's quasi-autistic behavior was in fact a clever act meant to throw Light (and anyone else he might encounter, for that matter) off-guard.[/spoiler] Personally I prefer to think the latter option is true, for the simple reason that I'm an L fan, and I believe he'd be perfectly capable of doing something along those lines. I bought volumes 5 through 7 of the manga a little while ago; volume 7, the most recent to be released, goes up to the chapter in which Light & company learn that [spoiler]Sayu has been kidnapped.[/spoiler] The cover features a really awesome upside-down image of L curled in the fetal position, biting his thumb. Great stuff. :animesmil ~Dagger~

All of you should know better than this. Advertising or soliciting illegal material (a category which includes anime mp3s) is strictly against the forum rules. Please don't do it again; repeated violations may lead to a ban. If you have any questions about our policies, you're welcome to private message me or one of the other staff members. Thanks. Thread closed. ~Dagger~

I stumbled across what I believe was a Naruto re-run earlier today, and I was wondering if someone could tell me which episode I watched. It couldn't have been a new episode, as the time slot was all wrong. The OP sequence had a brief segment of Naruto & Sasuke nostalgia; most of the episode was a very drawn-out fight between (the spoiler tags are just in case) [spoiler]a bishounen-ish guy with silver eyes & the swirly leaf insignia and a rather icky guy with six arms & the sound insignia. It looked like things would turn out rather badly for the former, but it ended on a cliffhanger.[/spoiler] Yeah, I'm just curious. :animesmil ~Dagger~

You're correct on that count--they're airing the movie, not the series, and personally I'd be extremely surprised (in a pleasant way, of course) if they ever did air the original show. Of course, with Eva coming to AS, I suppose anything is possible now... ~Dagger~

A couple of points to keep in mind: 1. Double-posting is strictly forbidden here. Please don't do it again. 2. If you want to discuss Yu Yu Hakusho, feel free to do so in the designated Yu Yu Hakusho topic (which can be found by browsing the Directory sticky thread). If you want to set up an RPG, head over to the Arena--just be sure to read the Arena's various stickies before posting anything, as that part of OtakuBoards has a number of additional rules (including the ratings system and so forth). 3. This sort of message might fit better in your signature than anywhere else, particularly if you're looking to recruit people for an RPG that may not necessarily take place at OB. You're welcome to private message me or one of the other staff members if you have additional comments, questions, concerns, etc. Thanks. Thread closed. ~Dagger~

I'm almost positive that Tenjho Tenge is seinen. At least, the magazine in which the manga is serialized (Ultra Jump, if I recall correctly) is a seinen magazine. In terms of shounen fighting series, I was thinking more of stuff like Flame of Recca (which you mentioned), Bleach, Law of Ueki, Inuyasha and Get Backers--to name a few random examples. I may have been wrong about the identity of the protagonist, heh. I'm thinking of the young blond kid with the tufty hair who's played by Junko Takeuchi. Honestly, I don't recall much about the episode which I saw other than the fact that I heard Mitsuki Saiga's (Phantom's) voice while flipping channels and kept watching it because I wanted to see if she would have a major role. :animeshy: ~Dagger~

[quote name='Solo Tremaine][color=#503f86']There's editing all the way through the creation process- what comes out on screen is often far from how the creatpr originally planned things, simply because the act of putting it into physical terms potentially changes the effect a certain idea has.[/color][/quote] Not to butt in again (sorry about that, heh), but I kind of wanted to pick on this particular paragraph. "Editing" during the making of a show is something completely and utterly separate from cuts being imposed upon the final product by a different agency. As editing is a word with several shades of meaning, try substituting in "censorship" or "censoring." It hardly counts as censorship when a writer's idea evolves during the transition from mind to paper, for example. Even when aspects of a manga are altered in the making of the corresponding anime (Kaga doesn't smoke in the Hikaru no Go anime, for example), that isn't really censorship in the usual sense of the word--it's just the way they're choosing to make the show, for whatever reason. ~Dagger~

I think you're being a little hasty with the whole tomboys being less attractive thing. There aren't quite as many handsome girls as pretty boys, but it's still a fairly common character type. Consider Haruka from Sailor Moon and Rei from Maria-sama ga Miteru. Both are undeniably beautiful characters--and if their beauty is somewhat masculine in nature, well, that doesn't make it any less valid. As a slightly different example, Utena (from Revolutionary Girl Utena) appears more feminine, but she regularly cross-dresses, and much is made of her masculine personality traits. At least two characters in Oniisama E look so much like bishounen that it's difficult to get used to thinking of them as female (and in the context of the show, they're supposed to be extremely attractive, although most viewers may have some trouble with this at first). Personally, I like androgyny. I can't really pinpoint why--I just find it appealing. ~Dagger~

[quote name='Meggido'] Also having not read the book gave me a great joy. My sister who saw it with me and has read the book said it was completely different in most aspects.[/quote] So what's stopping you from reading it now? If you enjoyed the movie, you'll almost certainly enjoy the book as well--in fact, you just may end up liking it better. Plus, it's interesting to go over the (often striking) plot differences between the author's version of the story and Miyazaki's version of the story. Although I suppose some would say that one can't really count them as the same story at all. ~Dagger~

[quote name='Rick Hunter']Well as for as underated Animes go, I think stuff like Paranoia Agent, Dear S, and Macross are probably the most underated animes you can find right about now.[/quote] That's a pretty bizarre selection. I'm really interested in reading about what makes DearS so underrated, actually. By all appearances, it would seem to be a more ecchi version of Chobits (complete with an even more over-the-top version of the teacher from Mahoromatic). :animeswea ~Dagger~

I recently saw a random episode of this on TV... the fact that I still have trouble distinguishing between it and Erementar Gerad probably bodes ill for both shows, haha. As for MAR, the only thing which really attracts me about it is its vocal cast; I like the woman who plays the lead character (she's also the voice of Naruto from Naruto and Gon from Hunter x Hunter, so she's a shoo-in for this kind of role), and the person called Phantom is voiced by my favorite female seiyuu. So what sets this apart from other anime in the shounen fighting genre, Otaku America? ~Dagger~

This whole thread reads like something from 2002. :animestun That's a bad thing, by the way. Pretty much all of you here need to start focusing more on your post quality; we aren't asking you to write novels, but if all of your posts end up being barely a sentence long, that's a problem. One of OtakuBoards' goals is to foster thoughtful, in-depth discussions--in the future, please attempt to keep that in mind. Additionally, we maintain one official topic for each anime series, movie or OVA. As there's already a pre-established Yu Yu Hakusho thread (which can be found by going to the Directory sticky), you can post there if you want to talk about Hiei or any other YYH characters. Thread closed. ~Dagger~

We already have pre-existing threads for most of the elements of the GitS franchise. Please check the Directory sticky first if you still wish to discuss Stand Alone Complex, Innocence or the original film. Also, lilyholic, it would be best if you attempted to work on your post quality--here at OtakuBoards, we place a strong emphasis on making one's posts as clear and readable as possible. If you have any questions, you're welcome to private message me or one of the other staff members. Thanks. Thread closed. ~Dagger~