VP-Master

For me, I usually watch the anime for a series first just to see how it is and whether it's something I would like. After finding an anime i really like, I tend to go back to read the manga from the beginning and see any plot I missed, some of the content that wasn't included in the anime and the likes. I like going through a series in both anime and manga form because they're two different approaches to the series and it's fun to see the differences and similarities between the two. I also go to the manga when the anime doesn't go in major arcs of the manga story. For example with Kenshin, I had to go read the Jinchu Arc of the manga after I found out it didn't come out for the anime. Shame it was never animated but I'm happy it was available in the manga format. So yeah, both anime and manga are good stuff!

I remember first coming here in August 2000. Googling for some pokemon info and brought me over to register back then. I was a pretty active poster then but since I entered hs back in '01, my posting amount has gone down significantly. I still check on the boards at least once a week but don't put up a post unless there's a topic i'd really like to reply to. It's been interesting to see members come and go. I remember when IM_Gengar and dark_lugia(he changed his nick later on but I can't remember it) used to have a few flame wars but they left a few months after I came. I remember the boards weren't as strictly moderated back then so it wasn't too rare to see spam and flames. There's been quite a bit of changes over here @ OtakuBoards but it's no surprise. Time moves on and people move on along with it.

I too recently jumped onto the Bleach bandwagon and hearing loads of positive reviews from anime enthusiasts. I usually start following most anime after it's done airing in Japan or after it has been airing for a while. For example, Naruto was already on Ep 82 when I started watching. Newaz, I've heard such good things about Bleach that I decided to start watching as soon as the first ep came out. My first impressions of the show are a mixed bag. The OP music has kinda grown on me now and I really like the "retro" sort of look they put on the intro. I haven't gotten into the ED so much which reminds me a little of country music IMO (not one of my favorite music genres). As for the story itself, I must admit that I'm not completely sold on the story yet but I'll have to wait at least a few more eps to see how much I'll like it. After all, I can't really base my opinion on the plot on just the first ep. Some parallels: I got a feel of YYH and Shaman King (no surprise there) after watching this. The hollow Ichigo was fighting at the end looked a lot like an angel from Eva. It'll be interesting to see where this story heads.

The end of IY has been brought up already a few pages back in this topic. Something interesting I recently found out from TV Tome tho was: [quote]Producer, Michihiko Suwa, announced on a radio show that September 13th will see the end of the first series of Inuyasha. Thus implying that a second series is on the way. So Inuyasha [b]may[/b] not be over yet.[/quote] Key word there is the may. I don't know how valid this statement is but seeing as the manga is well ahead of the anime, there may be enough content to hit off a new series and excite plenty of IY fans. That being said, Inuyasha 165 (the latest ep) seems to have compressed 7 manga chaps into 1 ep (something I've heard from a few ppl who follow both the anime and manga). The fact that they're compressing so much manga makes me think they wouldn't mind doing a movie/OVA that'll sum up the manga ending irregardless of how much of the content has to be cut due to time restraints. It's too bad they can't just wait for the manga to finish before they complete the TV show but... well we'll see what happens.

The first InuYahsa movie, Affections Touching Across Time, will be out on DVD around September 7 or so and I've been hearing they'll air it on Cartoon Network sometime next year. The second IY movie, The Castle Beyond the Looking Glass, I've heard should be out on DVD in the US this December. No word if or when that'll air on Cartoon Network. Viz hasn't made any official announcements on the 3rd movie but a domestic release sometime in the future is pretty much guaranteed. Same with the upcoming 4th movie (coming out in December in Japan). Dunno if a fifth movie will be made so just stayed tune for it. As soon as they come out, it shouldn't be too hard to find the movies at any of your local stores selling anime (Sun Coast or Media Play) or if you're looking online, just try amazon.com or a place like that.

I started watching this anime back in April so it's been around for longer than a month (I believe it started to air sometime towards the end of March). I'm up to about ep 13 and so far this is an enjoyable anime but not the best I've seen (as of now). Regardless, the show has started to pick up some steam off late with the memories arch giving some good background on some of the main characters of the anime. The Ryussegan (sp?), as you will learn if you watch the show, is one psyco technique. TenTen loosely reminds me of [i]Real Bout High School[/i] but it is a bit more "hardcore" in my opinion (more violence, fanservice, and such). This is definetely something to check out if you're into the fighting genre of anime. TenTen gets a little serious at times but it's also mixed with a bit of comedy to keep viewers entertained (as I said there is some fanservice ;) ) Geneon picked up the rights to this a while back so DVDs will probably be out next year or sometime in the near future. Overall, TenTen is showing a lot of promise to be a good series and hopefully it'll live up to this expectation.

Just in case you haven't heard yet, the InuYasha anime is supposedely coming to a close early September in Japan. Viz reps at ComicCon a few days ago confirmed this by saying eps 166 and 167 (being aired together as a special) will end the TV run for IY in Japan. No word on whether the manga (which is still running) will end around the same time. I don't know if this is 100% true yet. Last year, Viz announced that ep 150 would be the end of IY but seeing that the show is already well past that point, it turned out to be wrong. Look for some more clarification on this from other sources but I'm pretty sure Viz double checked they were right this time after making a mistake last year. I also find it interesting that there's no word on an ending to the manga so it might be possible the TV show will have a different ending than the manga? I've also been hearing that the TV show may not have a conclusive ending to the show and the producers will wait for the manga to end and produce an OVA/movie for the manga ending. It'll be interesting to see what they do.

[quote name='Animegurl4ever][COLOR=Indigo][FONT=Century Gothic]hey u know in Rurouni Kenshin the 3rd Arc didn't occured in Cartoon Network...? Or did it? cuz I watch the whole thing and it end up at the part when Kenshin said that he is home....[/FONT'][/COLOR][/quote] Kenshins 3rd Arc, Tales of the Meiji, never aired on CN and no ones really sure if it ever will seeing as they've yanked Kenshin off their schedule. If you haven't seen it yet, Tales of the Meiji is nothing terribly special and a little bit of a dissapointment coming from that epic Kyoto Arc. The DVDs for these eps are already available if you were interested in seeing the TV ending or better yet, you can wait for Viz to release the manga volumes for the Jinchu arc, the true ending to the Rurouni Kenhsin tale. Unfortunately, this may not be released in the US for another year or two but if you're really into Kenshin, it will be well worth the wait.

Like many people here, I subscribe to Shonen Jump USA. I wasn't sure if I was going to like SJ at first so the first few issues I just bought them at the store, read them, and found out their manga selection was quite good with One Piece, Naruto, and Shaman King. They all turned out to be manga titles I really gained a liking towards. After about 3 issues in, i thought it was ridiculous to pay $5 for each issue at stores so I got the $20 subscription for 12 issues which was a really good deal (I had to pay $30 the next time I had to resubscribe but oh well). While SJ's content outside of the manga is kinda low quality (their anime/video game "reviews" feel more like ads to buy the product rather than being really subjective), this hardly matters to me as I'm only looking at the manga and seeing how well it's translated to English. I appreciate the fact that they kept the right-to-left format in tact for the US release and try to keep it as unedited as possible although with just a Teen rating, a few things are forced to be cut but it's understandable. I'm glad they added HnG to replace Sand Land at the end of last year. After reading the first 2 chapters of HnG, I really got into the series and went to the liberty of watching all 75 eps of the anime as well. I have recently started watching the Naruto anime as well and it looks great after reading the manga in SJ. I was kinda sad they didn't add Kenshin to SJ which would have made the mag killer to me but oh well, there are other ways to get a hand of RK i guess. I'll prolly continue suscribing to SJ for a while as long as the subscription does not rise above $30 which is quite a bit of money. I'd like to suscribe to some other Anime mags (such as NewType) as well but don't have the cash to cough up to buy some of that stuff. NewType for $90 a year is insane for me even with all the good stuff it comes with. So yeah, i'll be sticking with SJ for now.

[QUOTE=Dagger IX1]*grins* Oh, Mr. Watanabe has already got that covered. If you initially missed the little flying squirrel, scroll ahead to 15:14 and you'll see a furry white object plastered across the Adidas-wearing guard's face. I believe that Fuu referred to him (her?) as Momo. ^_^ ~Dagger~[/QUOTE] Yea you got me there. Completely forgot about Momo after I finished watching the ep. I wonder what type of role he'll play in the rest of the series. I've been hearing the Ep 2 of Samurai wasn't shown in Japan this week because some Volleyball Olympic Qualifier they were showing on Fuji TV went overtime and they wound up never showing Ep 2 afterwards. While I'm not completely sure if this is true or just some rumor, it is strange that raws of Ep 2 are still not available at this time. I'm hoping it's not true but if it is, I guess we have to wait for Ep 2 the next next week then. :(

[QUOTE=r2vq] VP-Master, having the last scene of the story as the first scene of your Episode is not uncommon. Writers do that often to build suspense. I don't think they would do this again, but considering Champloo's style, you never know... [/QUOTE] Yea I've seen this type of thing done several times before in other movies/tv shows. I was just curious to see if this'll be the format of every ep or just for this one to add, like you said, suspense to the ep. We'll see what happens. I'm also interested in seeing what other main characters might be added to Champloo. We got Jin, Mugen, and Fuu so far but I wonder if they might add some whacked out little kid like Ed and maybe some type of pet like Ein. Really added a lot of fun/humor to bebop so it'll be curious to see what they do with Champloo.

Just saw the first ep of Champloo subbed (the internet never ceases to amaze me) and this series definetely looks promising. While its hard to tell at this point whether Champloo will be better than Bebop or other anime in the samurai genre, this first ep has got me really interested in what's coming up. The animation style looks quite different from some of the other current anime series but it gives the bebop feel i've come to know and love. Also looking forward to see which direction the hip hop/turntable style will come into play later on. One thing was interesting to note was [spoiler] one of the major ending scenes of the ep was shown in the very beginning to add a little suspense and then the rest of the ep afterwards starts building up to that final scene shown in the beginning. [/spoiler] I don't know how much sense that made but I wonder if all the eps of Champloo will follow this pattern. I found it amusing in the beginning of the ep where it starts to give a disclaimer: [spoiler] This story is fictional. There are parts that are different from regular history but (next frame) Don't talk so much. Shut up and watch. [/spoiler] Got a good kick out of that. Really can't wait to see some more Champloo. I took a few screenshots of Ep 1 for people interested in the show. Enjoy.

Wow thats a lot of consoles Desbreko. I only have a fraction of that amount. I'll order from oldest to most recent from when I got each system. [B]SNES:[/B] My first system that brought me into the video game world. I remember getting it in 5th grade (early 98) when the system already was aging. I believe the N64 and PSX were only $150 then but I didn't want to wait to save up for one of those more advanced system so I just picked up the SNES for like $80 and it already came with DKC. It turned out be a great investment. I really enjoyed playing DKC for several years and when I had friends come over, it was great playing 2 player action. I later moved on DKC2 in 6th grade after I got a little bored of DKC and really liked that game too. Good DKC goodness. I remember playing Yoshi's Story during that time as well but I only got half way before I got tired of it. I've played a few other games on my SNES but nothing as intense as those 3 games. I played SNES till about 2001 right until I got my PS2. Since then I've used it on occasion but now it's mainly collecting dust near the side of my basement TV behind the PS2. [B]Gameboy Color:[/B] I got my GBC at around the beginning of '99. The main use for this system for me was playing Pokemon. I can still remember all those hours I've spent on Pokemon Blue and Gold trying to "catch 'em all" and making my team super strong. The batteries would die really quickly (I think the life on avg was only 10 hours) so I was forced to get an AC Adapter. After getting an SP, I really don't have much use for this system. Really no point selling it now either so I guess I have it as a keepsake of the good old days. [B]PS2:[/B] Picked up this bad boy when I was finishing up 8th grade (June 2001). I remember having a huge anticipation for buying this but the $300 price tag fended me off for a while until I could afford it. The first game I played for it was Tekken Tag Tournament (I got into it more for the bowling than the fighting). I also played THPS3 like mad in 9th grade before I got tired of it. After that I got kinda bored of the system and couldn't cough up $50 for new games so my system sat there in the dust like my SNES. Then at the end of 2002, I got really into DDR and decided to get some pads and DDRMax. I got back into PS2 again and I still enjoy doing some home DDRing. Outside of DDR, I picked up FFX (after a while) at the beginning of this year and played it solidly every weekend (too busy with school on weekdays) and just last week I beat it. Really awesome game so I got FFX-2 for my bday and currently playing through that with 18% complete so far. [B]GBA/SP[/B]: I bought a GBA around christmas 2001 with Mario Kart. I regret ever buying it now cuz I rarely used it. I was more interested playig PS2 games at home and on the road I never felt like playing my GBA games (fussed about batteries, not being able to see the screen, etc). The SP solved both of those problems so I decided to sell my old GBA and take an SP instead. Got that around this time last year and had such a hard time finding it. Fortunately found it at Wal-Mart the day before my b-day so that was cool. It's worked out well. I can play when it's dark out and got the rechargable battery/AC adapter so I don't need to worry about that. I save the SP mainly for road use with FFTA (i'm really into FF games if you can't tell). I hope to get a few more games for it in the futiure but for now, FFTA is more than enough.

Downloading seems to causing a big stir thiese days with mp3s, the big RIAA, and all that legal mess. Well here's my 2 cents on the issues. [COLOR=Blue] 1. Regardless of whether or not you download anime, do you believe that doing so is wrong?[/COLOR] well it may not be the right thing to do for simple reasons. For most people, when they start downloading stuff they just can't stop. I know a few people who claimed they just downloaded unlicensed anime but later on I found out they kept getting more fansubs even after the show was licensed (remember Gundam SEED?). If you keep your limits just to unlicensed shows and if you like it, then buy it on DVD when it's licensed, I don't see if there's anything wrong with that. The fansubs would help to promote business growth. Unfortunately, we have a tendency of not stopping the downloading because it's free and that's where we run into problems. [COLOR=Blue] 2. Do you think that you'd buy more DVDs if you didn't download any shows?[/COLOR] Nope, definetely not. DVD prices have been a main concern with me and I'm sure with many others as well. With anime DVDs at my local stores costing $28 a pop and being only a few bucks cheaper online, it's not something I can regurally afford. I understand licensing can cost a distributing compant a huge lump sum of money, but I feel lowering the price a bit would really help the market grow. An average of $25 for 3-4 episodes of a show? It's a niche market but it really would be great if they could lower that price tag down so more people could watch some anime "the legal way" without having to rely on dubs on networks with their excessive cuts and edits. [COLOR=Blue] 3. Do foreign (not Japanese) anime companies pay attention to the popularity of various fansubbed series?[/COLOR] I'd expect them to but I don't think it's always the case. Fansubs of shows such as Naruto and Hikaru no Go have been very popular with the fansub base online but these shows have yet to be licensed outside of Japan (as of my knowledge) not counting their respective manga titles. There might be some legal compications with their licensing status that I'm unaware of but as of now, I'm still confused why they haven't been licensed yet. On the other hand, shows like Gundam SEED got very popular with fansubs and Bandai officially licensed it right before the show ended in Japan. I guess it depends.

Well this new Pokemon remake might be a waste of money but it does introduce a nice new feature. Browsing IGN GB I found that while the game itself may not be exciting many people, what comes with it might. Each box comes with the new GBA wireless adapter (as mentioned earlier) that allows you battle/trade pokemon with others who are seperated from you. Sort of like a wireless link cable. I don't know the the range of the adapter and how far away it can pick up signals from other adapters but it seems like a pretty neat feature. If you're not into the whole Pokemon thing, the wireless adapter technology will be used in some other games as well in the future. It'll be interesting to see if they market this device here in the US and other countries and whether they'll package it with the new Pokemon game for free like they're doing in Japan. If used correctly, it could be some hot property.

I haven't seen all of the eps on Cartoon Network so I'm not entirely sure on this but compared to the uncut version, i think the main difference many times is just the CN version tones down the language a bit. Also I think I've seen some scenes where blood is digitally removed from parts to make it seem less gory. From what i've seen, the edits are not unbearable since it's Adult Swim but in some parts you will notice the cuts. I finished watching Cowboy Bebop a few months ago and I have to say I really enjoyed every minute of it. The nice music blended with hillarious characters, and intricate fight scenes. It just doesn't get better than that. I also hear the Bebop creator Shinichiro Watanabe is creating an all new anime called Samurai Champloo which is coming out later in 2004 in Japan. Not really sure on the plot but I hope it doesn't dissapoint. It'll good for all those Bebop fans out there begging for more. You can check out the main site @ [url]www.samuraichamploo.com[/url] but it's mainly in japanese so I don't know how much it helps.

I used to marathon anime before but ive seen ive stopped now. A year back or so, I used to marathon 5-7 eps of shows i was watching for the first time. But I used to get busy sometimes and couldn't watch the show again for another few months when I found free time. My gripe with this was sometimes I'd forget little pieces of the plot and be forced to watch bits and pieces of prior eps to fully understand the current one I was watching. While I could understand the shows well, it was quite annoying to go back and forth between eps when all you want to do is see the new stuff. Now since school keeps me busier than before, I like the idea of watching 1 ep per week of a show. Last year, I watched Cowboy Bebop over a span of 5 months or so and really enjoyed the anime this way. It might take a longer time to get through the standard 26 episode show like this but 1 ep a week helps me get my other work done and watch my anime without having to put it off for a later date. I'm currently watching Neon Genesis Evangelion in this format and for a show of this magnitude, it's good to watch an ep at a time and attempt to aborb it in my mind slowly. At least that's my preference. One show that I've preferred to watch in marathons is Rurouni Kenshin. When I first saw this show, I was at a friend's house who owned much of the eps of the show. Once he showed me the first ep I didn't wanna stop there so I think I saw the first 15 eps of Kenshin in one sitting and it really got me hooked. When I later watched the "Legend of Kyoto" arc (after I got the eps), I liked watching serveral eps at a time to get the flow of the story moving quicker and I could find the time to watch. I guess the debate of whether to marathon or not to marathon depends on the show you're watching and how much time you have to watch. Some shows are great to watch in long stretches at a time but for others, this can cause the interest in it to lessen a bit. Some shows you never want to stop watching but our life calls us to do other things. It's all a mixed bag.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by kenshinsbabe [/i] [B]Tales of the Meiji. . . I think that is when Kenshin first meets Kaoru and everything that we see in the Cartoon Network shown series is shown. [/B][/QUOTE] The beginning part of the anime where Kenshin first meets Kaoru and so forth is called "The Wandering Samurai". The beginning part of the series where we meet the Kenshin group and they go one their adventures. The "Tales of the Meiji" occurs after the "Legend of Kyoto" and hasn't been shown on Cartoon Network yet. Don't know it'll be on as CN keeps re-airing the original eps.

I guess the Tales of the Meiji were better than I was expecting. A few of my friends who were die-hard kenshin fans told me this is the worst trash ever and it's just sad to see the story end this way. I started watching the arc expecting it to be bad but the eps winded up being higher than my low expectations (which doesn't say too much). I found the "Christian Arc" in the Tales of Meiji quite enjoyable and the rest of the episodes were decent at best. The final eps of the show were starting to get a little redundant but it ended up alright. I still would much rather have preferred the tv company to have waited and animated the jinchuu arc instead which would have been a much better end to this wonderful tale. Everyone look out for volumes 18 to 26 (i think those were the numbers) of Kenshin manga to catch up on the Jinchuu arc. Unfortunately, it'll be a few years till Viz releases them to the states. :(

In general, if I had the choice I'd prolly take the sub over the dub. I've really got nothing against the dub but it just tends to be whenever I watch them, the english voices don't seem to match their characters too well. This isn't the case for all shows like Ranma 1/2 where the japanese voices were alright and the English ones were the same quality so I had no preference. For shows like Cowoby Bebop or Kenshin, I really like the subtitled version better because I tend to feel the japanese versions on Kenshin's and Spike's voice fit better. I don't know if i'm littled biased for those though because I heard the Japanese voices first and the dubbing just sounded awkward after that. I've heard some of the people who prefer dubs say they have trouble reading the subtitles and catching the action on screen at the same time. It's definitely something you gotta get used to but I know it's something everyone can manage. I've been a very slow reader in school but when I watch subs, I don't have any trouble reading subtitles and watching the rest of the screen. It's a matter of personal preference but I like the japanese version better because I prefer the authencity and the voice acting.

Fansubbed titles are enjoyable to watch when you get a good group doing the fansubbing (one that knows the English grammer well and can translate from Japanese fluently). Considering I really don't watch dubs of animes newaz, I don't mind fansubs at all. I use it as a good way to watch an anime series and find if it's something I'd like to see more of. If it's good enuf, I might eventually buy the DVD. With prices over $25 for 3-4 eps, it better be good or there's no point buying it. Fansubs are a good gage of testing that as well as watching new anime just released in Japan and won't make it's way into the US for some time. Overall, I'd give a thumbs up to fansubs even though there a lot of people who hate them for a variety of reasons.

I've checked a few sites on this and all of them seem to say that the Second season of Berserk is NOT in the works. I know a lot of us want it but there's no news of it becoming a reality as of yet. I'm not really sure why the show stopped before the manga though and why it can't continue. Maybe someone else can explain that.

I'm not into much of the extra features of dvds outside of getting to see deleted scenes (a feature I've rarely scene on anime dvds which are advertised as uncut) but I'd still have to agree with you. For the ridiculous amount of cash a typical stores charges you for 3-4 eps of anime (at about say $27), you ought to get your money's worth. Better extra features would help to equate for the inflated price of anime DVDs and so far, i've seen a limited selection of these outside of Miyazaki films. I don't know if the situation will improve in the future but I'd prefer to see anime go down to a flat price of $19.99 or so rather than add more features. Saving a little cash would make it a lot easier for me to buy them.

You might want to check out a site like animenfo.com or animenewsnetwork.com that have massive databases of anime series and info on them. Are you sure you got all the names right? Princess Mononoke has already been discussed. I never heard of a show called Sentimental Graffiti (although there is one called Sentimental Journey). By Saber, do you mean the Saber Marionette series? I havent heard of a series called just Saber. I also haven't heard of a show called Gateway Keepers unless you mean Gatekeepers? If your names of the series turn out to be the correct ones pleace keep me informed. I'd like to know about those titles as well.

i had a chance to catch a few volumes of the manga this summer and overall it was alright. The wierd ways Keitaro accidently falls into a pervertic situation can get pretty redundant over time but i'd have to agree that the show can get give a lot of good laughs. A lot of typical anime comedy here so if you're into that stuff, it's not a bad title to pick up if you haven't done so already. Haven't seen the anime yet but looking forward to watching it in the future.