EVA Unit 100

[QUOTE=? Nomad Tical ?]No, Christmas is a ca[italist ploy to get people to buy more presents, Christ has been utterly forgotten. People tell themselves it's about Christ but the sad truth is that our heads have been turned away. Does anyone even know why Chistmas is celebrated on December 25th? Jesus was burn in freikin April! When Constantine was ruler he was trying to make all the religions happy so he put all their holidays on one day. His people celebrated the Sun God stuff on December 25 so they moved Christmas to that date. Everyone has been turned away from Jesus and instead worship presents and money. Santa Claus is the portrait of these material things and so it is as though we worship Santa over the lord Christ! Now, I'm not religeous, but pondering it further, who would want to turn our heads from Christ? Satan, maybe? Let's make some comparisons... -Santa is Satan is you just move the 'n' a few spaces -He wears all red -His Workers are little pointy-eared demonic creatures -His sleigh is guided by reindeer which almost resemble goats -He turns us all to Greed and makes us forget Christ So if you still believe this is the celebration of Jesus's birthday, let me ask you -- What did YOU get Jesus for his birthday?[/QUOTE] lol. That's so right, and it's stuff like this that makes me glad that I'm Jewish (not that I don't get lots of presents for Chanukah :D ). December to me generally means the vacation, the dim-sum-and-a-movie tradition of "Jewish Christmas" (this year the movie was King Kong (an awesome movie, I might add)), Chanukah, New Year's Eve, staying up late watching Adult Swim, and lots of parties. In other words general awesomeness. However, all this awesomeness makes everything else look pale in comparison, and the time I have to stay in school is total hell. I just want the damn thing to end already. Luckily the wait is always worth it, and I'm always so high on sugar by the time school comes around again that I don't even notice that the vacation is over! This year for me Chanukah has been better than usual. In particular, last night was one of the best nights of my life! All of the interns from my mom's store came over, all of whom are big otakus and some of my best friends. We ate a big dinner and lots of chocolate, gave each other presents, chatted, gambled, cracked a lot of funny jokes, and had a Super Smash Brothers Melee tournament. What more could you ask for?

I pretty much agree with James and Tical on this one. The world has improved a lot over the course of history in the long run. However, I'd like to add that this improvement generally comes in cycles where things get a bit worse before things get better. Currently, it seems as if the world is in the "getting worse" stage. And since people are so nearsighted, I can understand why people think that civilization as we know it is going to crumble, between the situations in the Middle East, Ethiopia, Southeast Asia, New Orleans, and lots of other tragedies in recent years. However, it will get better soon. People just have to make it better like they have in years past.

[quote name='Dagger']On-topic, I still haven't gone to Goblet of Fire (or Prisoner of Azkaban, for that matter, but I think I'm just going to skip PoA). [/quote] If you have to choose between seeing PoA or GoF, see PoA. It's probably the only HP film that comes even close to the greatness of the books (and PoA was my favorite of the books, so that's saying a lot). GoF isn't without its charm, but it's an extremely flawed film. On the positive side of things, the challenges are fast and exciting, Rupert and the Phelps twins have never been funnier, and nothing can ever be a more faithful representation of the book than the GoF movie's portrayal of the return of Lord Voldemort. That's more or less it for the positives, though. Although GoF may very well be one of the finest action-adventure movies I've seen recently, that's all it is and nothing more: a very good action-adventure movie. And while it tries to achieve the level of well-roundedness of the book, it fails miserably. Outside of a few outstanding comedic performances that I already mentioned earlier, everything that doesn't concern the tournament or Voldemort's return is done extremely lazily. Some of the directing is downright terrible; I don't recall a single time when Dumbledore said anything without screaming in the movie. Emma Watson, the most charming of the major kid actors in the first 3 movies, now comes off as a mere two-dimmensional device for the purposes of the Yule Ball (and is made even less in-character by the lack of the entire Winky plotline). Entire subplots concerning Rita Skeeter and Madame Maxime have been altered and dumbed down to the point where you wonder why they even included those characters at all. Even the book's moving "remember Cedric Diggory" speech is forced and forgettable in the movie. While the PoA movie singlehandedly elevated the HP movie franchise to greatness with it's extraordinary understanding of the characters, GoF might very well be the weakest of all 4 movies so far. My advice: see PoA any way you can (HBO shows is so much that it's pretty hard to miss unless you have a very busy schedule that can't accomidate a 2-hour-plus movie), but wait for GoF to come out on DVD.

I highly recommend that you watch Paranoia Agent. It's pretty confusing and extremely surreal, but if you like very involved character-driven stories, thought-provoking mysteries, and a bit of dark humor you'll absolutely love it. Similar to Lain in some ways, but it moves at such a fast pace that I doubt you'd get bored of it.

[quote name='? Nomad Tical ?']Where the hell is my fanbase?[/quote] Right here. Other than that, Dagger is the one person here I'd like to meet the most. We can have lots of great debates, and overall she seems like a really nice and cool person. And if he's still here, Lightwing. Just to see if he was able to live another day.

[quote name='Metal Paw][font=trebuchet ms][size=2][color=purple]Oh...ok...cool. I'll see if I can find someone who has them and watch them and if I like, I'll buy. But, yeah, anime usually only comes with three on a disc.[/color][/size'][/font][/quote] OK. Here's a good website with information on JLU: [url]http://www.worldsfinestonline.com/WF/jlu/[/url]

What I'm currently going through isn't quite as cyclical as what Hug Monster is talking about, but I've been having some random mood changes as well. In the past 3 months I've been overachieving, underachieving, depressed, and now I want to be much more peppy and upbeat. I think a sudden mood swing would take my friends at school by shock. Thank God for winter vacation and New Year's resolutions. You know, me and Hug Monster seem to have more in common the more I read his posts. Maybe you can IM me, Tical! My name is HoyvinGlavin64.

[QUOTE=Shi no Tenshi]1) Art is something that makes us re-evaluate our own opinions as individuals and as a public. And not in the sense that perhaps some people can learn that bonding within a family is indeed a good thing as they do with the Simpsons. How dare you compare Jackson Pollock's art that expresses angst over the horror's of the Holocaust, stating the impossibility of creating something so pure when something so evil has taken place, to say with Homer's angst over the last doughnut being eaten? 2) I've at least seen adverts for One Piece - what monkies did they have to beat to draw something as badly stylised as that? 3) If the makers of such anime even cared about their creation, they would ensure that it was properly dubbed and translated. 4) For example, name one Hayao Miyazaki that's been badly dubbed. No? I didn't think so. Why? Because his animations are blissful productions that challenge the viewer both aesthetically and mentally, and he would not allow a bad dub to destroy this image (even if it meant keeping the same bad ending for Howl's Flying Castle). 5) On another note, never challenge my respect for artists. I wouldn't be doing a degree in art if I didn't believe in its artists.[/QUOTE] 1) The Simpsons is a satire. In the course of it's run, it's made challenging statements about family dysfunction, capitolism, stereotypes, advertising, the influence of the media, child labor, immigration, sexism, drug usage, sexuality, religious extremism, government spending, the agendas of political parties, the quality of schools and healthcare, and other major issues such as those. It might exaggerate them to unrealistic extremes, but the message is still there. The fact the show has been able to offend, please, and challenge so many people in the course of its run due to making fun of those issues qualifies it as art in my mind. 2) One Piece's animation is bad but in the Japanese version the storytelling is some of the best, at least for it's genre. Not very deep or artistic, but an entertaining show nonetheless. And unfortunately I can't find anything entertaining about the dub. 3) The creators do care. The problem is that the companies that own the animes don't. A good example of this happening in America would be Nickelodeon firing John Krisfalucci from Ren and Stimpy, a show that he created. I haven't read a single interview with John since then that didn't have him bashing that particular network to pieces. 4) Warriors of the Wind. There. A total massacre of the Miyazaki movie Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (which was originally one of his best movies ever). A total half-hour of that 2-hour movie was cut and the plot was changed drastically. The poster for it alone revealed lots of major changes from the Japanese version. Luckily Disney has made a good dub of Nausicaa since then, but the fact Warriors of the Wind was ever made is a total disgrace to Miyazaki's work. 5) Good to know you respect artists. Now please add Matt Groening to your list.

[QUOTE=Shi no Tenshi]Please. There are better things to get passionate about. And yes kids are gaining from it because it is fulfilling it's purpose of being a form of entertainment. Who cares if they aren't learning the true values of being an American? Even if it's no longer the characters, it's hardly a substancial show that follows a consistent story line - so why bother getting annoyed that in some country that you don't live in, some viewers will be watching a badly dubbed version of the Simpsons (which I'm sorry to say is not an art form as much as it is a modern classic).[/QUOTE] But once you kill the characters and satire, the two main reasons why The Simpsons is so funny, how can the show possibly be entertaining? According to an LA Times article, lots of people from the places where The Shamshoons is airing are furious that such massive changes have been made. More importantly, it's a total disgrace to all of the hard work that dozens of genius writers have put into making The Simpsons great (Exactly what do you mean by "it's hardly a substancial show" and "is not an art form as much as it is a modern classic"? Just because it doesn't focus on making a big detailed plot doesn't make The Simpsons any less of a work of art. Just the simple fact anyone put any level of creativity into it being an entertaining form of film makes it art by literal definition, but it helps that in its prime it was also the funniest and most intelligent satire on television). And that alone makes this not worth supporting if you have any respect for the artists. What do you think about the anime hackjobs I listed earlier? Again, if you support this while hating those hackjobs you are one of the worst hypocrites alive today.

[quote name='Shi no Tenshi']Not much else to say on the matter, it doesn't bother me. Kids are gaining something from it, so I don't see the problem, if anything I find the dubbing rather funny.[/quote] But what could kids be gaining from this? They won't be gaining anything because edits made to get rid of American culture, non-Islamic religion, the behavior of the characters, and essentially all PG content will eliminate about all of the humor that made The Simpsons so good. If all they did was edit out bad language, mistranslate a few really obscure jokes that weren't all that funny to begin with, and not air the episodes focused entirely on marajuana and gay marriage I wouldn't mind this at all. But when you get rid of every single aspect of Homer's character outside of a catchphrase that just there kills any chance of The Shamshoons being even a quarter as smart, funny, sweet, cutting-edge, and overall enjoyable as the real version of The Simpsons. Honestly, this is bad. Warriors of the Wind bad. Battle of the Planets bad. Escaflowne on FOX bad. CardCaptors bad. 4Kids' One Piece bad. If you liked any of those hackjobs you probably wouldn't be posting on an anime forum. If you hated those yet like this you are a hypocrite and art-racist in every sense.

Meet "The Shamshoons": [url]http://media.putfile.com/shamshoon[/url] Censorship is t eh suck.

[QUOTE=Dagger]Anyway, I still haven't seen the movies, haha. But I'm hoping to rectify that, come Christmas. :p ~Dagger~[/QUOTE] Skip Death and Rebirth. Totally useless clipshow whose only gimmicks are now obsolete given the releases of the platinum director's cuts and The End of Evangelion. The End of Evangelion is recommended viewing, if only for the fact it properly ends the plot of the series (unlike the last two episodes) while still allowing us to look into the character's minds (like the last two episodes, only better). However, it's quality other than that is highly debatable. If you can handle the gore and sexual content (including a very distrubing opening about... you don't wanna know), the first half of the movie is by far the best material that the series has put out, with an explaination of Instrumentality, an amazing battle between Asuka and the rest EVA units, and a well-written conversation between Shinji and Misato leading up to a very sad death. The second half of the movie, on the other hand, falls into the trap of the Matrix prequels and is nearly all symbolism. I actually know quite a bit about the material being refferenced, and yet I was still totally confused. We do get some development of Shinji, which is nice, and if you're into Rei fanservice and an immense pervert you might have some fun with the fate of that particular character, but overall the whole second act of the film plays as an R-rated version of FLCL as told by an extremely religious kid with an Edipus complex and severe depression. In other words, it can be somewhat interesting, but also downright painful to watch. The end of the film I found oddly satisfying, but it's done in such a vague manner that it can be interpretted in less positive ways. Watch the film any way you can, but be warned: it'll definately drive you totally insane if you aren't perpared.

[quote name='Metal Paw][font=trebuchet ms][size=2][color=purple]Really? Ok, I'll give it a go.[/color][/size'][/font][/quote] Unfortunately it's currently off the air and there are only two DVD releases of it (one of which has some good episodes, but there's only 3 per disc). Luckily season sets will be coming out sometime either next year or the year after that and you can probably find some episodes online.

Um, perhaps because there's more bad animes than good animes? ;) Please, if you want to talk about a show that you love without talking to people that hate that specific show, post in the official thread for that series (I think there's a link at the top of the page to a list of all of the official series threads). They generally go on for lots of pages (the Naruto thread I think is in the 20s or early 30s), and you'll mostly find positive remarks in those. Try posting in those threads, you might like it. Just stop saying "PEOPLE SHOULD ONLY TALK ABOUT STUFF THEY LIKE!1!1!" and instead actually talk about WHAT you like in those threads. You'll definately find lots of people who share your opinions.

[url]http://dvd.ign.com/articles/674/674513p1.html[/url] If you read this article, you'll notice that it tells several lies. First of all, they said that EVA is being "editted and heavily rewritten" on Cartoon Network when nothing was rewritten and so far only 1 second has been editted. Not a major offense, but something showing quite a bit of ignorance. However, the last 3rd of the article I found extremely biased, mean, and entirely inacurrate. In just one article, whoever was making this article wrote such falsehoods as English dubbers put less effort into producing shows than fansubbers, that Case Closed was butchered to make it into a kids show, that illegally downloading licensed shows is acceptable as a way of "fighting censorship", that the original Japanese versions of the shows are unavailable to the public legally, and in general the article tried to make FUNimation look like the worst company ever and make fansubbing look like a noble endeavor. They constantly lied and lied and lied and it makes me furious! Whoever was writting this article must have been either extremely biased or totally oblivious to everything that's happened in the anime world during the past 5 years. I say we at Otaku Boards force IGN to correct this article to be factual. Also, another mistake this article made was listing the Case Closed DVD as NC-17. Given how much this article ranted about Case Closed, the 2 mistakes entirely cancel each other out and just make the article even more insipid than it actually is.

[QUOTE=Metal Paw][font=trebuchet ms][size=2][color=purple] Why? Why, they ask me. Well, the American cartoons are so fill of crud; they have no story line or plot; they have no sequencial order; the graphics a terrible and there's no shading and lighting difference. Whereas anime, there's a story line; the graphics are excellent and they're jus plain cool. With anime, you miss one episode, you might not understand what happens in the next one while as in cartoons, you can miss 50 of them and you'll still understand. Cartoons don't require you to think much either. With anime, you get all worked up and you think ahead, trying to figure out who the bad guy is, what's gonna happend next, who's gonna die, that kind of thing. [/color][/size][/font][/QUOTE] Watch Justice League Unlimited. It has a really complicated storyline with a sequential order (albiet with a lot of filler, but lots of animes have that with the exception of Fullmetal Alchemist), beautiful animation with amazing shading and lighting effects, and really causes you to think (I got surprised and even a bit confused at a few points in the series, and I generally can predict animes pretty well).

[quote name='TailTactics']Ouch, dont be so hasty now. I love some dubs, such as the Full metal Alchemist and Dragonball Z serires. I just truely despise the Naruto dub.[/quote] Dragonball Z's dub got rid of ALL of the original music, had awful voice acting, removed entire episodes, and had lots of edits for blood and "detail" (the last 2 things don't count if you're talking about the "Ultimate Uncut" DVDs and the recent run on CN, but the Naruto DVDs aren't even out yet and are going to be uncut with all of the "detail" left in). And you think THAT hackjob is better than Naruto's dub (and the UNCUT DVDs with ALL of the blood and the kiss scene intact will be DUBBED, so really your crusade against the DUB doesn't count)!?! Also, r2vq, I like the dub and don't mind the fact the TV version editted the kiss scene, but they would be able to show the kiss on Adult Swim. They got away with an entire episode of Champloo featuring a gay Dutchman falling in love with a crossdressing male geisha with a long montage about homosexuality among samurais entirely uncut except for one muttering of the word asshole (which doesn't even have to do with the content you're talking about being editted). That scene should be no problem.

It depends on what anime world I'd want to live in. "Real world" anime (Tenchi, Fruits Basket, etc.) I'd be fine with. I'd just go about regular life, except I'd have those crazy SD expressions and there'd be all of those aliens and curses and unusually large-breasted chicks that would make things all the more interesting. Being in a historical anime setting ala Kenshin would be interesting, but I'm guessing it would get boring quickly unless I was right in the middle of the action. Now if I was in messed-up rap-techno Champloo "historical" world, then that would be my first choice of place to live! As far as dark futures go, it could possibly be cool. The worlds in such series as Gundam actually don't seem that far off from what the world might be like in the future. Set me into the EVA world, however, and I'd want to kill myself.

[QUOTE=Dagger]You think that's blasphemy? How about if I say that I like Hunter x Hunter, Yu Yu Hakusho [i]and[/i] Bleach better than One Piece? :animesmil [Insert obligatory paragraph about the almighty pwnage of any shounen action series involving Yoshihiro Togashi and/or Noriyuki Abe.] ~Dagger~[/QUOTE] If you've only seen the first 20-or-so episodes or so of OP, I'll excuse you. However, from Aarlong on OP becomes amazing. Also, I've never seen HxH or Bleach and like YYH a lot so you're excused for that.

[QUOTE=Dagger][b]Hikaru no Go[/b] sounds pretty boring & sedate--it's a series about a difficult-to-learn and esoteric (in the Western hemisphere, at any rate) board game. Surprisingly, it's actually very thrilling and addictive, and you don't have to know a thing about Go to appreciate it. Honestly, I think Hikaru no Go is a lot more interesting than any of the Shounen Jump action-adventure anime. ~Dagger~[/QUOTE] Better than the One Piece Japanese/manga version? Blashphemy! You die now! :devil:

Fullmetal is the best, but Champloo, Stand Alone Complex, and Evangelion all have moments of greatness. But HOW could this poll have overlooked Paranoia Agent? I can see it now... Kino: My journey is aimless. Maniwa: My quest is impossible! Kino: Hermes is my only friend. Maniwa: All of my friends have gone insane! Kina: But it is a bearable way of life. Maniwa: What the F**K are you saying!?! Can you honestly stand having an average of [B]10[/B] viewers[I]!?!?!?!?![/I][B]?!?!?!?!?[/B][U]!?!?!?!?![/U] If you don't get it, that makes it all the more true for the rest of us.

[QUOTE=Hug Monster][COLOR=Purple]I don't have time to go through and snatch every quote that I want to answer so I'll just make a list 1. 14 isn't that young, I know plenty of kids my age who are in sexual relationships. 2. I am different, I don't even want a sexual relationship >_< 3. I disagree with having to have a stronger pull on one gender. I like to think of myself as right in the middle. 4. To anyone who thinks I'm probably just going through a phase, in all honesty I'd hate to think that I'm not bisexual... 5. Yes, psychology at 14. I have already saved several people online from killing themselves and I've helped some people with relationship problems.[/COLOR][/QUOTE] Wow. Are you me from 1.25 years in the future? I seem to be going through some of the same issues. I'm a bit younger, though (13 in a few months), so the part about your peers having sexual relationships doesn't apply to my situation. Other than that, it seems as if we're thinking almost the exact same thoughts. Guess it's just something people think about when they're going through early puberty. For a bit of time I was certain that I was straight, but then a few months back I thought I had a crush on one of the boys at my school (I don't have it now, though). Now I'm extremely uncertain about my sexuality but in all honesty I don't really care since I'm so young. I'll give myself time to figure this type of confusing stuff out. Hmm, I wonder where the fact I used to think T.M. Revolution was female fits into this...

If I could have any anime weapon, it would absolutely have to be Haruko's guitar. Man, I always come up with the creative answers!

I change my mind on what species I want to be pretty frequently, but currently I'm a tiger. I get along well with cats and I've had a bit of a craving for meat lately so it fits pretty much perfectly. Plus it they look really cool and I want cat ears! :catgirl:

[quote name='persocomblues']You named it, that's usually what I look for in an anime, again though the dubbing bothered me so much that I kept getting distracted from whatever plot it had. If it does get deeper, as you suggest, than I would most certainly look forward to trying it again in its subtitled form if I can find it.[/quote] If you are bothered with the show at all, it isn't because of the dub. The script is essentially a word-for-word translation of the original and even if the VAs aren't that good the Japanese ones honestly aren't significantly better. Don't listen to people who blame Naruto's quality/lack of it on the dub. They're just scared to admit that the Naruto anime isn't as good as it is made out to be in the first place. I like Naruto in both subbed and dubbed forms, so I don't have anything against the show, but I'm just stating the facts on the psychology (for lack of a better word) of Naruto fandom.