Scoobert wrote:

Yup, great movie, probably one of the few anima's i can say i love. Although there are a few others.

I think you mean enema.

Now now Mertek, no mocking anime. You can mock DBZ, but don't mock all anime. Ever seen Noir? It friggin' rules. And I speak as a passionate anti-DBZer. (That is, anti to DBZers, not necessarily to DBZ itself... although I'm not a fan of DBZ. Actually I've never even seen an episode.) =)

Now now Mertek, no mocking anime. You can mock DBZ, but don't mock all anime. Ever seen Noir? It friggin' rules. And I speak as a passionate anti-DBZer. (That is, anti to DBZers, not necessarily to DBZ itself... although I'm not a fan of DBZ. Actually I've never even seen an episode.) =)

Well after seeing enough anime I've also come to the conclusion that what makes it anime is what's bad to begin with. I didn't like Pokemon when it started airing and this was before I even knew what anime was so it didn't even have the disadvatage of already having a predeterminined dislike. Then the DBZ stuff started showing up in BYOND and before that I didn't even know what DBZ was. Later I watch some of an episode since my previous roommate has a large colleciton of DBZ videos mostly in Japanese with English subtitles. The graphics were awful, the sounds were annoyig and didn't even sound anywhere near close to what they were supposed be(which eventually drove me to leaving before watching the whole episode), and the plot and characters were just plain ridiculus. The plot of that episode consisted of some kid who was overly taleneted and powerful and consisted mostly of him learning to fly, though in itself this plot isn't too bad it's execution in the episode was just stupid. Also at some party(well if you could call it that, it was mostly just a bunch of nerds hooking up to a network and playing various computer games) I watched some anime movie which I think was called Ghost in the Shell or something along those lines. Though the sound quality was much better and the graphic quality was marginally better the plot was ridiculus in a different way than DBZ/Pokemon. It was an attempt at conveying some deep meaning but in the end it just seemed overly contorted and convoluted and barely made sense. I also saw an episode of Cowboy Bebop which had similiar problems and I didn't really care for it either. Then there is the thing with all anime I've seen where you have a main character or narator spout off some long monologe which usually seems disasterous to the pacing of the show. After doing a quick search of Noir and reading some up on it and seeing pictures from the show it doesn't seem all too different, but then again I havn't seen an actual show so I don't really have much to mock about it, though I may have to just to spite it the next time something like this comes up on the forums.

All in all I just think anime sucks, but there were a lot of really bad cartoons that were made over here(US) too so it's not just the Japanese that are bad at doing cartoons. I've seen plenty of Hannah Barbara cartoons where each different cartoon may have a different setting(space, primitive land, ect) but all the plots are identical and they even receycle sound effects so much that it is painfully obvious. So I'll just stick with the Simpsons and Futurama since Matt Groening seems to known what he's doing :).

Well, if you don't like it you don't like it. Noir has no monologues; in fact, it has comparitively little speech at all. A lot of the conversation is carried out through gestures, the soundtrack (which rules, by the way), and through what happens on-screen. You don't hear someone saying "the person I love died and it was my fault and I feel really bad yadayadayada", you have evocative, haunting music, seeing them despair, and seeing them doing symbolic acts... like cracking an object that is significant in some way, throwing things away into a river... that sort of thing. I can't get too specific without spoiling the plot.

You should seriously watch it. The first few episodes are extremely weird and, well, random, but after about episode 5 it makes perfect sense as you have some context and information. =) Watch it before you judge it, it's better than I make it sound here.

I would agree, the original DB series was good and entertaining. I almost wish i could see it in jap so i would beable to hear what Cartoon Network filters out, i know the turtle humit dude says and does some sick stuff(he was almost always holding a porno mag, so you can guess he is a "dirty old man", so to speak).

Scoobert wrote:

I would agree, the original DB series was good and entertaining. I almost wish i could see it in jap so i would beable to hear what Cartoon Network filters out,

[snip]

Speaking in past tense is a bit off if you got your DB fix by watching Toonami. Dragonball is still going on Cartoon Network. New episodes started a week or two ago. (Of course you kind of switched tense in the second sentence, but I'd figured I'd tell you anyway if you were interested. ;) )

Unfortunately, I don't think it's a good starting point for new viewers. It's currently in a DBZish avenging hero story. If someone did not know who the characters were at this point then they probably wouldn't care. Even the fish-out-of-water jokes with Goku are gone because he is the one on the inside. The pacing seems to still be much better than Dragonball Z though.

Any sort of show with a long storyline is tough to get new people into. Enemy-of-the-week episodes may help with some shows. However that same method is held in low regard in anime circles. (US audiences barely tolerated it with Sailor Moon and it seems to have lost favor since then.)

As for movies, [link].

Shameless wish list plug: You can see some of my tastes here (my wish list) and here (stuff I don't like).

PS: Not that it shouldn't be expected anyway, but kudos for resisting temptation and shelling out the money to support your entertainers, Codesterz.