Any anime watchers here?

[Giles]

One of my interests is anime: are there any other anime lovers here?

I've just started on the series Sumomo mo Momo mo, which I'm finding very promising in spite of (or perhaps because of) the total cultural clash between the martial-art fanatic Momoko-chan and the law student Koushi-domo (as she calls him) that she is desperate to marry.

[Daerlyn]

I love anime, although it's hard to keep up with some years. Aside from the old classics like Cowboy Bebop and Revolutionary Girl Utena and so on, I've just gotten hooked on a series called Claymore

[Giles]

I love anime, although it's hard to keep up with some years. Aside from the old classics like Cowboy Bebop and Revolutionary Girl Utena and so on, I've just gotten hooked on a series called Claymore

Yes, I liked Claymore, even though I don't usually like stories with a horror theme.

[Daerlyn]

I admit I looked it up after seeing it referenced a lot on TVTropes. In fact, now that I think about it, a lot of the shows I watch these days I get into that way.

[SilverTygerGirl]

A bit. Lately I hardly watch anything at all, but I enjoyed Hellsing and Excel Saga. I tend to read more manga - Hellsing, Excel Saga, Ranma, Inuyasha, CardCaptor Sakura, and probably some more that I can't remember since they're packed away.

[Revenant Threshold]

One of my interests is anime: are there any other anime lovers here?

Yes, though i'm not sure your avatar is a good pick as a representation of you.

[Giles]

Yes, though i'm not sure your avatar is a good pick as a representation of you.

What -- a dirty old man whose main interest is high-school girls not good as a representation of me? I can't imagine why.

Spoiler: (My avatar is Kimura-sensei from Azumanga Daioh)

[Larry Borgia]

The last Anime I saw was Last Exile, a very odd steampunk adventure about people caught up in a war with flying battleships and aircraft carriers powered by some sort of unobtanium based lifting element.

[AllWalker]

I like the wierd stuff, like Ergo Proxy or Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, though not exclusively. I also like the stuff with battles of wits between geniuses, like Death Note and Code Geass.

[RobuSensei]

I used to watch a lot of anime...then I moved to Japan, and now for new stuff I usually go straight to the manga -- because it's easier for me to study the language by reading.

I am a big fan of Hayao Miyazaki and Satoshi Kon. However, these days I'm catching up on old-school series, such as Macross.

[ñañi]

First Post - Yay!

I'm only 21, so I know I'm going to be resented for using the phrase "When I was young" but...

When I was young, I was pretty much completely unaware of Japan or Japanese things in general; and I only had exposure to Anime series that were dubbed into Spanish when I went to Mexico. So, I just thought that they were Mexican TV shows, completely unaware of this so-called "Japan." I think this association saved me from a life of future Japan-obsessed geekdom that so many of my peers fell victim to. But I still enjoy the occasional Anime series, and I treasure those from my youth, especially since I never really watched Saturday morning cartoons.

I am very impressed with the production values of today, though, and one of my "If I was a Billionaire..." dreams is to take the old animated series I like and redo the animation to make it look sweeter. I'd keep the originals around, though.

I had great fun watching the 80's-90's classics like:

Dragonball - Heck, I'll still watch this. Hilarious and full of testosterone.

Captain Tsubasa - A soccer Anime. I will always remember the episode where Tsubasa's team plays another team that has a goalie soooo fat he takes up the entire goal. How can you score against that? With fighting spirit, that's how.

Urusei Yatsura, Ranma 1/2, etc. - slapstick and incredibly dysfunctional characters.

Saint Seiya (Knights of the Zodiac) - Still HUGE in Mexico and, for some reason, other Romance language countries. One of the many "Team of guys in magic armor fight" shows.

And so on. I've also watched, as it goes along, shows like Naruto and Bleach, and other things like that.

I should say that I really am a sucker for "emotional moments" in shows, and Anime does them just right for me.

[sublight]

I used to be really interested in anime a long time ago (early 90s), but I actually lost interest once I moved to Japan. Funny that.

I like the Studio Ghibili-style films, but that's about all the anime I ever watch nowadays.

[puppygod]

One of my interests is anime: are there any other anime lovers here?

Sure there are.

I guess it was two or three years ago, when I decided that I am way back with popular culture knowledge and decided to catch up. Which included watching some classic (loosely defined classic) anime. And then I got hooked.

It was kinda ironic, because I have life-long interest in Japanese culture, including mostly language, history and cooking. So while most people get their first contact with Japanese culture through anime, in my case it was exactly reversed.

After catching up with classics I moved to recent series and, as I said, got hooked up.

Now I'm watching Toradora - sweet love comedy series with very good characterization. And a lot of dramatic development, that recently got it into my top ten favorite.

Of older series I guess that Haruhi Suzumiya no Yuutsu and Black Lagoon are my favorites. If somebody want some more recommendations, I can share my opinions about series and movies I've seen.

[Giles]

Like puppygod, I first got interested in things Japanese long before I watched any anime. I started being interested when I started to catalogue Japanese books in a library in Australia, starting with no knowledge of Japanese, and just with a knowledge of how to look up Chinese characters in a Chinese dictionary. It was slow work, but I could do it because I could cross-check my work with work in other library catalogues. So, when I discovered anime 3 or 4 years ago, I started with a basic knowledge of how the Japanese language works, and with some rudimentary knowledge of Japanese history and culture -- all from book-learning, since I've been to Japan itself only for two two-hour visits (entirely spent at the old Osaka airport about 15 years ago).

[OtakuLoki]

One of my interests is anime: are there any other anime lovers here?

(looks around) Nope. Nary a one, here.


Alas, it's been a while since I could either afford to look at much new stuff, and when I do, it's often been disappointing. Some of that is that I'm finding it harder and harder lately to watch ANY TV, not just anime.

[Angelsoft]

It's been a long time since I saw anything new. I have no extra income to buy any and a crappy net connection for other resources. The last 'new' series I watched was Gankutsuou and I was (and still am) absolutely in LOVE with it. Beautiful art, wonderful storyline. Think "The Count of Monte Cristo" in a sci-fi setting. *dreamy sigh* I think I'll go watch it again.

[Giles]

Alas, it's been a while since I could either afford to look at much new stuff, and when I do, it's often been disappointing. Some of that is that I'm finding it harder and harder lately to watch ANY TV, not just anime.

I have a substantial collection on DVD, but I must confess that I haven't added much to it lately, partly because I've found several good sources of fansubbed anime. The fansubbing world is so good that you can watch some anime episodes subtitled in English within a week of them being broadcast in Japan.

One of the best of these sources is Anime-Direct.com, which has a policy of dropping series licensed outside Japan, and so is missing a lot of the good older ones, but which does have a lot of really current series. For example, with one of the currently broadcasting series that I really like, Toradora!, they are up to episode 21, which broadcast just 6 days ago. (And, no, I have no connection with this service other than subscribing to it.

[puppygod]

Within week? Toradora is subbed by group called CoalGuys, and they release episodes within 24-48 hours from broadcast, and so far keep schedule without slips

Oh, and as a side note, you can watch a lot of anime online, through services like Veoh.com, for example. Including subbed ones.

Seriously, availability of some media in this age is sometimes astounding.

[SilverTygerGirl]

It was kinda ironic, because I have life-long interest in Japanese culture, including mostly language, history and cooking. So while most people get their first contact with Japanese culture through anime, in my case it was exactly reversed.

My mom exposed me to Asian stuff (both Chinese and Japanese), and I came to like Japanese more. I don't really connect anime to Japan, exactly, leaving out shows like Rurouni Kenshin. But (obviously) I like kimono, the language, dolls, the history, etc, along with anime and manga.

[einmon]

Well, your thread at least gave me the idea of what to do for an avatar I also watch anime, although I'm rather selective about what I watch (after slogging through ages of Naruto Shippuuden - I had been warned, but did I believe it?) Nowadays I mostly read the manga. The last anime I watched was Ouran High School Host Club, which I thought was rather amusing, poking fun at all kinds of anime clichés.

[Taumpy]

Yes, some. Like many in my age group I got into anime watching the Sailor Moon dub in the mid 90's (yeah, the DIC one.. by the time Cartoon Network released S and SuperS I was watching subs only) and for a while I was a big fan of everything Rumiko Takahashi-related (except Inuyasha.. never got into that).

The last thing new I've seen, though, is Witch Hunter Robin, so it's been a little while.

[RobuSensei]

I have a substantial collection on DVD, but I must confess that I haven't added much to it lately, partly because I've found several good sources of fansubbed anime. The fansubbing world is so good that you can watch some anime episodes subtitled in English within a week of them being broadcast in Japan.

I have a standard knee-jerk rant about fansubs...fortunately for all reading this thread, I've been trying to break the habit of automatically posting it.

(I'm a hypocrite, anyways. Not with fansubs -- my computer is too old and decrepit to play the latest video codecs -- but I get my American TV fix from friends in the States with TiVos and DVD burners...)

[Hostile Dialect]

I don't know much about it, but I've always had a lot of friends who were into it. Every once in a while I'll stumble into a showing of something at Comic-Con that turns out to be pretty cool.

I've also read a little of that manga about the gay baker of demonic power--Antique Bakery, I think? I've been meaning to read that one through, or at least watch the anime.

I'm also told I would love Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell. I'm into cyberpunk in general, so I've been meaning to check Cowboy Bebop out, but I saw Ghost in the Shell and, I dunno, it just didn't absorb me.

FLCL, on the other hand, is just a masterpiece. I'm gonna go download that, in fact...

[Ermes Marana]

90% of everything is crap, and it might be even higher for anime. But there is some great stuff out there.

Studio Ghibli has some great movies (best of all Ocean Waves, Whisper of the Heart, and Princess Mononoke).

Miyazaki also directed IMHO the best anime ever, Future Boy Conan.

Master Keaton and Monster, both based on manga by Naoki Urasawa, are phenomenal.

I also like everything Satoshi Kon has done.