just a quick show of hands, how many otaku (anime enthuiasts) make up the Stripcreator crowd? What are you're favorite series, OVAs, and whatever. And if you have made any anime based strips feel free to show them. I figure there is a good number, why else would DexX draw us a tentacle.

P.S. Does anyone know where I can get some of that Menchi flavored Pocky?

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"Nothing expresses the brutal grandeur of rectal polyps and anal fistulae quite like the mother-tongue of Goethe."

As a hardcore Otaku purist, I would have to say Speed Racer. Definitely.

Actually I'm an occasional consumer. I really dug "Project A-Ko", "Perfect Blue", "Princess Monokoke", and "Rope Bondage Fairy Asako".

Wait, that last one is my favorite recurring dream. Nevermind.

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"You'll burn for this. Burn in jail!"

Waitaminute waitaminute...I can't believe you didn't mention Cowboy Beebop! By far the best anime ever created. If you haven't seen it, I recommend you do so immediately.

My asian friend, Steve, has TONS of REAL anime that is straight from the source. You haven't seen anime until you have seen the anime that hasn't been americanized and hacked up! Check it out if you can get ahold of some.

I bet Boinky likes Hentai :)

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Welcome to Bohemia. Population: a lot Cash flow: a little

I'd say I'm more than an occasional fan, but I'm not as hardcore as some people I know.

I don't think I have any anime-inspired strips, but Drexle's Starstruck series is about tentacle porn.

I'm a fan of about half the stuff Cartoon Network shows on Saturday nights -- Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, and InuYasha specifically. PRSB is right about how great Cowboy Bebop is -- even if you don't normally like anime, give it a try once or twice. In fact, they showed the last episode this past weekend, so this coming weekend should be the first one again, which is an excellent place to start.

I'm not big on the Gundam series, and I can barely stand Dragonball Z. I also have to admit, I've never seen Speed Racer and don't really care for Akira. I don't have a particular preference for dubbed or subtitled movies. And I've never had Pocky.

I liked The Heroic Legend of Arislan and wish they would continue making the anime, though it doesn't seem likely.

I also like Ghost in the Shell, Gunsmith Cats, and Lone Wolf and Cub, just to throw out some names. I'm gradually working my way through the books of the latter that Dark Horse is currently publishing. It's a little expensive, but I recommend it highly.

To throw out some more names... if you're looking for a self-contained movie that's not part of a big series, try They Were 11, A Wind Called Amnesia, or Night on the Galactic Railroad.

I was at this year's Otakon. I don't suppose anyone else here was?

I went to see Spirited Away Friday night. It's in theaters in North America now and probably will be through Halloween, at least. If you're a fan of any of Miyazaki's other work, you'll probably like this too.

I guess I could name a bunch of other stuff, but this is probably plenty.

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

I saw one about ten years ago called "Supernatural Beast City." Damned if I could tell what was going on. Subtitles might have helped, but probably not. Anyway, the hero had this huge gun that he used to blow away the supernatural beasts. Whenever he fired it, it smashed him into the wall so hard he'd have to peel himself off. That was cool.

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What others say about boorite!

Yay, anime fans!

I'm not hardcore myself, but I've seen a lot of different anime/manga.

Violinist of Hamelin is pretty nice.

I get enough asiaction in kung fu movies.

Nah, Hong Kong action movies tend to follow in the footsteps of American ones. The Japanese, on the other hand, do some of the craziest things. I mean, drama revolving around cooking and yo-yo contests? You don't get more original than that!

Aren't the Iron Chefs supposed to be the souls of departed super chefs that Kaga brings back to life so that they can battle challengers in cook-offs? I'm serious. I think that's supposed to be the backstory. Some fucked up shit right there.

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What others say about boorite!

This from someone who doesn't know Dune is a book.

I quite like some anime. My favorites include Dragon Half for abject silliness, Battle Angel, and of course Evangellion (although it took watching the whole thing twice with explanation from my Japanese friend between the viewings to really understand it). My favorite movie of all time is probably Kaze-no Tani-no Nausicaa, but I like most of what Miyazaki's done. (Didn't like Kiki, though; it didn't go anywhere.)

I hate Sailor Moon, Maison Ikoku, KOR, and many others. Anything childish (without the requisite amount of cute to balance it out) or drama (which in anime is more like hyper-melodrama) is a "no" on my list. I never really liked any Gundam, either, and I fucking hate anything Dragonball.

I like plenty of others, including anything cute (like Saber Marionette J). I like Outlaw Star, but Cowboy Beebop isn't all it's cracked up to be. I didn't really like Lain, and...

...ah, fuck it. I could go on forever. You get the idea.

If anyone's interested, a few weeks ago they were selling some really inexpensive Miyazaki box sets on E-Bay; I think they've still got a few auctions going.

And as long as I'm rambling incoherently, one of my favorite scenes is in Evangellion #19 when Shinji's Eva starts eating the fallen Angel. Holy SHIT that is so hardcore.

Oh, and if anyone out there gets started on the Rurouni Kenshin series, you'll hit a lull somewhere between #40 and #50 when it starts getting really slow -- just stop right there; it doesn't get any better. It only gets slower and slower and slower until the final episode when you're thinking, "I can't believe I watched that shit." The final battle between Kenshin and Shishio takes FOUR EPISODES even though they only strike maybe 2 or 3 blows each. MAN does that suck.

Okay, I'm really finished now (for now).

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"Old" is the old new.

I had forgotten was all. :-P

Hehe, I found this interesting because people usually say that Evangelion makes less sense than Lain.

Fist of the North Star.

Wouldn't really call myself "otaku", though.

Haha, what a big sack of loser pokemon fans.

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"I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown." -- mrjass@mindless.com

Hehe, I found this interesting because people usually say that Evangelion makes less sense than Lain.

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Maybe -- I only saw Lain once and I've seen Eva twice, so I'm not sure. It's possible that Lain made more sense, but it wasn't nearly as interesting or twisted as Eva (even though it was pretty twisted).

Neither one of them made much sense on my first viewing, but something still drew me to Eva to watch it again.

Also note that if you buy Eva in the store or rent it from a video store (which must be must better than any near me to even have it), you'll get episodes 1-26. However, the ending -- eps. 25-26, -- aren't ACTUALLY the ending of the show. The original series was a 24-episode TV show culminating in 90-minute movie which tied up most loose ends (all the ones that needed to be tied up) and made some sense of the show.

However, this wasn't a happy ending. In fact, it was probably the least happy ending I've ever seen in any venue since Grave of the Fireflies, and audiences didn't like it. (I won't give it away here, but IM if you want me to spoil it for you.) So when it was released on video (both in Japan and abroad), they took out the movie and instead added episodes 25-26, which were a mish-mash of flashes of exitentialist ramblings that would have made good entries in CC #146.

Eps. 25-26 do make some semblence of sense if you've seen the movie, which is silly because the whole point of those episodes was to replace the movie. I heard a nasty rumor that the authors of the show purposely made the new, "happy" ending suck as a protest for having to redo their story, which really was better originally. So it's all screwed up.

If you're going to watch Eva, contact your local anime club and see if they have a copy of the movie -- it's very rare commercially and even rarer subtitled, da kara nihongo dekinakereba kitto komarimasu.

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"Old" is the old new.

I quite liked the Guyver, although it got a bit stupid by the end.

Anime.... Isn't that those goofy little, bug-eyed Japanese cartoons where the mouths move like three times for every 12 words? God, those blow.

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

Oh wait, THAT'S why some people say that the ending is depressing!

I didn't know about that, to tell the truth. I'll see what I can do about acquiring that movie.

Bunner; your homework assignment for this thread is to go to Blockbuster and rent Ghost in the Shell. You might like it or you might hate it, but hopefully you'll get a sense for the level of sophistication that Japanese animation has achieved.

And if nothing else, it has a naked lady.

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"You'll burn for this. Burn in jail!"

Bunner; your homework assignment for this thread is to go to Blockbuster and rent Ghost in the Shell. You might like it or you might hate it, but hopefully you'll get a sense for the level of sophistication that Japanese animation has achieved.

And if nothing else, it has a naked lady.

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Gotcha. I'll rent the DVD.

(I saw parts of "Akira" at the Spy Club once. It was... ok. Is that good Anime?)

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

I'm not a super-fan, so my assessment should probably be taken lightly. But alot of Western fans still seem to think of it as the high water mark. Personally, I thought it was over-rated. Or maybe it just hasn't aged well, but it was widely credited with breaking open the genre in the West. Alot of the themes you see there are pretty typical; gritty and chaotic urban environments reminiscent of Western cyberpunk authors and films like Blade Runner.

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"You'll burn for this. Burn in jail!"

Akira is a good example of decent anime, although it doesn't actually make any sense unless you also read the comic books, which I haven't.

Mind you, I still liked it, even though some parts were best described as: "Huh?"

If you want to start watching anime by renting something, be careful. Most anime in video stores (the ones here, anyway) is from back when anime first became popular -- which means it's what my friend describes as "kiddie porn." Basically cartoon sex.

If you're super-unlucky, you'll end up renting something like Urotsukidouji, which is less "kiddie porn" and more "flying-tenticle demon ass-rapings." There is a whole venue dedicated to this.

All in all, Akira is a good start, but don't watch it and think that no anime makes sense. Ghost in a Shell might actuall be a better first anime.

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"Old" is the old new.

quote:

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If you want to start watching anime by renting something, be careful. Most anime in video stores (the ones here, anyway) is from back when anime first became popular -- which means it's what my friend describes as "kiddie porn." Basically cartoon sex.

If you're super-unlucky, you'll end up renting something like Urotsukidouji, which is less "kiddie porn" and more "flying-tenticle demon ass-rapings."

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Dandy. I think I'll just watch "The Fifth Element" again.

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

I can't believe we have a bunch of anime hounds here, but not a single one of them spoke up on my more masturbatory threads.

What kind of anime hounds are you, anyway?

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

Enh. Good drawings. Too much talking.

That movie was cyberpunk only in the matter of window dressing. I can't think of one really cyberpunk movie. Well, not a decent one, anyway. Lawnmower Man was a piece of shit. The Fifth Element was incoherent and gaudy. The Matrix pussed out on the "punk" part, unless you consider "punk" to mean "black trenchcoats and cool shades." Johnny Mnemonic took one of my favorite authors' best early stories and shat upon it from a dizzying height.

Robocop, Liquid Sky, and Total Recall come close. But to know what cyberpunk is, you have to read Mirrorshades, which is the cyberpunk anthology, and all of Gibson's "Sprawl" novels.

Maybe the upcoming Neuromancer will finally bring the genre to the screen.

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What others say about boorite!