Awww, man. Gainax was among the first things that introduced me to anime'. I wasn't aware of the financial happenings until now.
The General Anime Thread!
- Thread starter Skipper
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Yeah, it does seem that one kinda fell off the map once the anime concluded. Maybe we'll get lucky and Crunchyroll or Discoteck will license it.
The series seems to be showing up in best anime of 2025 lists, so maybe that'll help get people interested in the movie. I fully expect the movie to be the least impressive take on the story, but I want to see it anyway.
It's been a week, so I hope this won't count as spamming.
I'm finally getting around to Knights of Sidonia, a couple years or more after buying the blu rays cheap from a co-worker. And tonight I've watched five episodes in a row, and I'm liking it. I've read some of Tsutomu Nihei's other manga (mainly Blame!) but he is a very productive guy. Should I consider reading the Knights manga?
Edit: it’s been another week but I don’t want to push my luck. So I’ve seen both seasons and the movie, and that movie should have been another season. It felt way too compressed. Still, a movie’s better than no ending at all, and a lot was resolved. Tanikaze ending up with (spoiler) didn’t completely work for me, but at least (spoiler and spoiler) got together in a slightly surprising development that really could have used more time to develop.
Next up: probably Patlabor: The New Files, as I’ve watched everything else in that box set.
I'm finally getting around to Knights of Sidonia, a couple years or more after buying the blu rays cheap from a co-worker. And tonight I've watched five episodes in a row, and I'm liking it. I've read some of Tsutomu Nihei's other manga (mainly Blame!) but he is a very productive guy. Should I consider reading the Knights manga?
Edit: it’s been another week but I don’t want to push my luck. So I’ve seen both seasons and the movie, and that movie should have been another season. It felt way too compressed. Still, a movie’s better than no ending at all, and a lot was resolved. Tanikaze ending up with (spoiler) didn’t completely work for me, but at least (spoiler and spoiler) got together in a slightly surprising development that really could have used more time to develop.
Next up: probably Patlabor: The New Files, as I’ve watched everything else in that box set.
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I'm looking forward to this. Of course, I expect a lot of complaints that this year's Ghost in the Shell isn't like the "original," meaning the 1995 movie. The original is the manga, which this is apparently going to be more faithful to. And pretty much all the anime so far have drawn more on that first movie than on the manga, in terms of characters, tone, etc, so this could really be different.
(And on a very different note, with a new Patlabor series, Patlabor EZY, also coming soon, I'm finally finishing The New Files, and the one that just started is a Blade Runner homage.)
(And on a very different note, with a new Patlabor series, Patlabor EZY, also coming soon, I'm finally finishing The New Files, and the one that just started is a Blade Runner homage.)
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I thought the designs and animation in the teaser looked really good! A nice blend of classic and modern.
It's probably been 20-25 years since I last saw the original Ghost in the Shell movie. I should give that a rewatch before the new adaption.
I read an article saying that Kusanagi in the manga is a much more goofy and irreverent character than the way she's portrayed onscreen. It sounded like the tone was closer to something like Dirty Pair.
I've been watching it lately on PlutoTV (since Crunchyroll's version is bizarrely stretched out 10% too wide in aspect ratio, so everybody looks too stocky). It's the first time I've seen it in decades and the first time in Japanese. It's a lot of fun, and the animation looks good in a '90s sort of way, rough-hewn but with a lot of dynamism. Still, there are times when the humor goes further than I'd like, where the trail of destruction the Lovely Angels leave in their wake implies death on a truly massive scale but is just shrugged off as a comedy "oops" beat. (Also, I'm not sure the Crunchyroll people have actually watched the show, since they list it with a content advisory for nudity among other things, but it's actually pretty tame in the skin department by anime standards. I think the title leads English speakers to expect the show to be racier than it is.)
I've realized something I'd forgotten, that my choice of the name "Troubleshooters" for the superhero protagonists of my novel Only Superhuman may have been partly influenced by the "Trouble Consultant" job title of the Lovely Angels (presuming they kept that title in the English dub). I mean, there are definitely a couple of Dirty Pair homages in the novel (there's a flashback where the redheaded heroine goes by "Kei" and wears the commensurate hairstyle, and her Japanese best friend was inspired by Yuri), but I'd forgotten that was one of them. Although I mainly got the term from MacGyver, whose title character was a troubleshooter for the Phoenix Foundation (and for a US intelligence agency in season 1), and from a TV-news consumer reporter here in Cincinnati who called himself the Troubleshooter because he investigated viewer complaints about various local businesses.
I'm not familiar with Dirty Pair, but I'm rereading the GitS manga (volume 1 and 1.5 done, 2 up next). Among other things, manga Motoko has a boyfriend, possibly girlfriends, and friends/roommates she parties with. She doesn't spend a lot of time on existential brooding.
No one else excited about Patlabor EZY? Anyone who likes Ghost in the Shell should at least be familiar with the first two Patlabor anime movies, which were written by Kazunori Itō and directed by Mamoru Oshii before they teamed up again for the first Ghost in the Shell movie. Seeing the first Patlabor movie on TV back in the '90s was probably my starting point for getting into anime. (The Patlabor TV series plays things much more for laughs. Usually.)
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The original release of the manga has an explicit scene of the Major participating in a threesome with two other nude women, but Shirow himself chose to remove it in later editions, apparently deciding it was unnecessary for the story. It's not hard to find in a web search, though...
that scene also focuses on a technical description of skin sensors and data processing...
and then batou breaks into her comms, and she punches him in the face with his own arm because he complains about receiving signals he is not "designed" to receive, as it were.
the manga(s) is not without it's brooding and philosophical sections, but also, sometimes it just turns into slapstick.
and then batou breaks into her comms, and she punches him in the face with his own arm because he complains about receiving signals he is not "designed" to receive, as it were.
the manga(s) is not without it's brooding and philosophical sections, but also, sometimes it just turns into slapstick.
One thing I didn't realize is that TNG's artists were paying Dirty Pair back for some TOS references in the background art of the first couple of its episodes.
It was the same thing with Urusei Yatsura, too.
She was just a (bionic) girl who had fun in her spare time and wasn't shy about cracking jokes when she was working. She was a professional, but not the mega-focused brooding government killer like in the movie.
The tone was lighter than the film, but more serious than Dirty Pair.
There's something I've been wondering about, and this seems like a good place to ask.
In the 1980s when they were bring over anime like Macross and Beast King Go-Lion to the US why did they turn them into totally different shows like Robotech and Voltron, instead of just doing straight translations like we get with most anime now? I'd apply the same question to Tokusatu shows like Super Sentai/Power Rangers, Big Battle Beetleborgs/Metal Hero, and VR Troopers/more Metal Hero series.
In both situations wouldn't it have been easier and cheaper for everyone if they just translated them, and dubbed and/or added subtitles to them? Rather coming up with a new story and everything.
In the 1980s when they were bring over anime like Macross and Beast King Go-Lion to the US why did they turn them into totally different shows like Robotech and Voltron, instead of just doing straight translations like we get with most anime now? I'd apply the same question to Tokusatu shows like Super Sentai/Power Rangers, Big Battle Beetleborgs/Metal Hero, and VR Troopers/more Metal Hero series.
In both situations wouldn't it have been easier and cheaper for everyone if they just translated them, and dubbed and/or added subtitles to them? Rather coming up with a new story and everything.