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Anime AICN - Too Much `Your House`

Anyone home? by halfmahalfn	May 11th, 2006 10:31:51 PM
Does anyone care about this Manga stuff should AICN r come to stop them?
I'll try again later. by halfmahalfn	May 11th, 2006 10:33:06 PM
Sorry. That should have been two sentences. And now, with this being the second and last post, consider this talkback closed.
lots of good manga coming by fried samurai	May 12th, 2006 09:35:49 AM
Dark Horse really has a great selection of manga and I cant wait to pick up Ohikkoshi.I picked up the first vol. of Octopus Girl after reading about it here and really liked it.I get a kick out of dark and twisted manga.Found a copy of Mr Arashi's Freak Show and loved it.I'd like to read more of Suehiro Maruo's stuff if it ever gets released.
CricketCricketCricketCricket * by Cletus Van Damme	May 12th, 2006 09:40:01 AM

Tezuka is the master. by veritasses	May 12th, 2006 10:49:40 AM
He's written so many great series like Hi No Tori series, Mittsu Me Ga Toru, Umi No Toriton, Black Jack, Tetsuwan Atomu etc. It's hard to imagine a modern author matching him in variety, quantity and quality. There's also a deep level of science, philosophy, commentary and gravitas in his work that I think makes him completely unique. Though I've heard he was heavily influenced by Disney animation which seems somewhat ironic in a way. And don't dismiss Shoujo manga simply because of the art style or market focus. Some of it is story telling at it's finest.
re: Tezuka by ScottGreen	May 12th, 2006 12:36:11 PM
Some Tezuka reccomendations: Volume 3 of Dark Horse release of Astro Boy has "The Greatest Robot on Earth," one of the lost Astro Boy stories. It's a simple story, but very well told. Naoki Urasawa of Monster is currently re-telling it as "Pluto". A couple volumes after that, there's a time travel story that's absolutely heart breaking. Adolf is by personal reccomendation as a must read. It's the story of a half-Japanese half German and a Jew boy living in Japan. It starts at the German hosted Olympics and ends after the establishment of Isreal. Very powerful stuff. Of Phoenix, which works as stand alone stories, I'd especially reccomend "Karma", volume 4 of Viz's release. In ways very different from Astro Boy, the pure storytelling is amazing. The only ones I'd really stay away from are Lost World and Metropolis. Unless you want to see them for their historical interest, they're early works and not as good as his later stuff.
THe new Negima better not skimp on the action by Johnno	May 12th, 2006 03:49:55 PM
The manga is great! But the series sucked ass...
re: Negima by ScottGreen	May 12th, 2006 04:18:08 PM
In honest curiosity, what's good about the manga? I haven't kept up with it. I've in the later volumes it improved, but in what I've read (the first couple volumes) I found it obvious and consciously pandering. Maybe Negami is different, but I've found Ken Akumatsu works to leave a sour taste.
Tezuka's Features by Harry Weinstein	May 12th, 2006 07:19:26 PM
Why has nobody put out decent versions (or any versions, for the most part) of the Tezuka feature films in the US? I imagine it's at least partly a rights thing. Sony most likely has the rights to the ALAKAZAM THE GREAT recut of SAIYUKI as part of the MGM/Orion/AIP library - maybe they'll do something worthwhile with it. Is there no perceived market for this stuff, or does Tezuka Productions simply want too much money for the rights? Or are the rights already spoken for? I know ALAKAZAM, CLEOPATRA, PHOENIX 2772, UNICO, and probably others all got US releases of one sort or another - cut, dubbed releases, but releases all the same. UNICO was apparently on RCA/Columbia Home Video, so that one might also be at Sony.
ScottGreen... about Negima by Johnno	May 12th, 2006 09:16:50 PM
Well I'm sure I haven't read as much manga as you have... I found Love Hina to be hilarious... I've never watched the anime, only saw the 'again' movie at an anime con and it was just alright. But I flipped through one book of it in a Chapters Store, laughed my ass off and picked up all the volumes (It was complete at the time...). Then I heard about Negima, and didn't think much of it, aside from the fact that I liked the artwork and think that Akamatsu draws the cutest anime-girls I've come to see insterms of art style. Anyway I left it for awhile... Then one day while walking about with money to blow during Boxing Day, I managed to get a whole bunch of manga for the US cover price (I'm Canadian), so I decided to try out Negima, I liked Love Hina, so why not? Perhaps the first books aren't much, and I figured it would most likely be like Love Hina al over again... but later on it takes a somewhat drastic turn around the kyoto trip, which you must've seen in the series, but the manga has many things that the series didn't show you, plsu the fact that the series must have been jumping ahead of the manga or coming to a close, they just made up something to end it with. The series also took shorter stories in the manga and drew them out longer to fill an episode as well as added things that... well... let's just say the series doesn't do the manga justice. I found it poorly animated and quite a disappointment form the detailed and energetic artwork and action sequences of the manga. I love the girls and all those little background conversations and humor of the manga. If you found Love Hina funny, then this will definately suit your tastes. The only shortcoming is the well... fan service/panty shots and many occasions of non-nude nudity. I mean, there are like 30 girls... Akamatsu must be going for some kind of world record for a harem manga... and it becomes stale and frankly you reach a point where you just don't notice it anymore. But that aside it's still really funny and all the girls personalities are different, work well together in every occasion and Akamatsu is taking the time to flesh out all of them in each book. Plus the school that the girls attend is quite a large and amazing place, something you don't quite get from teh anime. If any anime is going to get this right, they'd need a pretty sweet budget and really add in those details that make the manga what it is. Which is why I feel, going for a periodic OVA approach would be better in teh long run than a series, unless of course the series will be high quality. There are many sequences in there that would just be dazzling eye candy if done right. Anyway the manga has it's serious and often dark moments and it here that you see Akamatsu trying to pull away from Love Hina and make Negima something new. Del Rey also does a good job releasing it and translating and explaining the Latin and greek spells as well as other Japanese cultural things. I find the Negima manga quite entertaining. What book have you read up to? If it's one of the first 4 or 5, try picking up some of the later ones, up to 9 now with 10 out next month... and see what you think. I'm personally loving how much story they pack into every release.
re: Tezuka's Features by veritasses	May 12th, 2006 10:01:05 PM
If I had to guess, I'd think it's mostly the lack of perceived market. The "in" anime generating all the buzz and $$ all have ninjas, giant robots, guns, have some tie-in with card games or are visual kaleidoscope beauties with good but somewhat one dimensional stories (with some exception). Though I
re: Negima/Akumatsu by ScottGreen	May 12th, 2006 10:17:53 PM
Speaking to Love Hina, not Negima, I find Akumatsu's design is appealing, and his character sketches are amusing, but it's hollow. There's little development, and little conviction. Creators like Go Nagai made trash, but it was forceful, epic, medium shaping trash. Going back to the Tenchi Muyo hayday, I've found the harem genre dramatically unsatifying. Accidental sexual contact followed by violent rebtribition is shallow. It's hard to read more than lust into it, and generally I'm less forgiving of sexual wish fullfilmment than other. It's far more interesting in rare cases where the hero is an active partipent. Golden Boy or Urusei Yatsura (or even Ranma) had a hero that brought something to the equation. Check out Viz's old Pulp titles like Dance 'Til Tomorrow for good examples of this.
re: Tezuka's Features by ScottGreen	May 12th, 2006 10:22:24 PM
Of the Tezuka features I can think of, they tend to be more of an interest to student of the medium than for their entertainment values. The TV works are a different story, but I can't think of any real crowd pleasures. (Other than Bagi, and in that case the crowd would be the furry crowd)
OT: One thing I like about this column... by veritasses	May 12th, 2006 11:46:20 PM
other than the fact that it deals with manga and anime of course, is that it is the only place on this site this can claim to be a 100% Plant Free Zone. What a relief to read real comments by fans for fans. It must be the big movie season coming up with diminished box office numbers but the Plants have been growing like weeds around here. Sorry for the rant.
always hardcore by meersan	May 13th, 2006 12:19:51 AM
This is once again my favorite column on this site by far. From what little I've seen of harem series I agree with ScottG... not enough going on with the main character to make them engaging. It's possible that those types of stories 'work' on some level because if you make the hero adored by all _and_ possessed of a dynamic or challenging personality, he becomes less of a wish-fulfillment cipher for the reader to sink his own personality into. I dunno. As for giant ninja robot CCG series, I guess it's inevitable that the most obviously commercial properties will receive more oxygen. And, there's an awful lot of series that _do_ fit into "ninjas, giant robots, guns, tie-in with card games or visual kaleidoscope beauties with good but somewhat one dimensional stories".
Fearless by gopherkhan	May 14th, 2006 12:19:30 PM
For anyone who cares, I've reviewed the Jet Li film, fearless: http://www.dreamlogic.net/arch ives/movie-review-fearless

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