The Animation Appreciation Thread

I strictly watch subs. I like the Japanese language so why would I do otherwise? That said I know there are a few English dubs so notoriously good they stand up to the originals - haven't heard the dubs myself, but Fullmetal Alchemist and Cowboy Bebop get brought up a lot as examples of such. Not sure what the consensus on the Death Note dub is.
 
8 episodes in with Death Note and I'm starting to understand why people go on and on about it. Unlike Mort I think even if this genre wasn't my thing I'd still be able to recognize it for its quality.

It really keeps you on your toes and the tense moments really landed for me.
That moment when Light finally gets the FBI agent's widow's name and then tells her to her face that he is Kira... Amazing.
 
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I'll be honest, as I watched the first two episodes there was almost enough shit I thought was dumb to completely write it off and let it collect dust on my shelf (how does Watari enter Interpol HQ to give a talk to law enforcement without being identified via security, L seems to just sidestep logic and go with the magical murderer angle too quickly into the show, I get he's an abnormal character but still... Also it seems as if Light is autistically genius and this is presented to the viewers as something we just have to accept without any context) but by episode 4 I was completely onboard.
 
Dubbed Vegeta has the greatest voice ever spoken.

Definitely this. Honestly DBZ is probably the only example of an anime where the dub is superior in basically every way to the original Japanese. Goku's Japanese voice is also incredibly lacking compared with the dub, but Vegeta is masterclass badass without a doubt. Also dont forget the Bruce Faulconer BGM version originally aired on Toonami, which is imo the best way to watch DBZ. Unfortunately the Funimation DVDs for this series currently available suck because they cropped the original 4:3 video and made it 16:9, while simultaneously destroying the color palette by oversaturating it to death.

I'll be honest, as I watched the first two episodes there was almost enough shit I thought was dumb to completely write it off and let it collect dust on my shelf (how does Watari enter Interpol HQ to give a talk to law enforcement without being identified via security, L seems to just sidestep logic and go with the magical murderer angle too quickly into the show, I get he's an abnormal character but still... Also it seems as if Light is autistically genius and this is presented to the viewers as something we just have to accept without any context) but by episode 4 I was completely onboard.

Im not sure how far you have progressed, but unfortunately the show doesnt maintain the level of excitement that it presented in roughly the first 10 episodes. Though tbh, I think the hate for the show grew more because of how overrated it became rather than it actually being terrible. Still worth watching imo.

As far as anime goes, im more of an 80s/90s fan as opposed to any newer series. Some of my favorites are Zeta Gundam, Berserk (original anime), SDF Macross, Ashita no Joe, Rurouni Kenshin/Samurai X, Gunbuster, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, etc. I like some newer shit like Gintama, Kaiji, Steins;Gate, Code Geass, Initial D, etc, but I find the "best-girl" shit to be a bit nauseating. It is like Welcome to the NHK has come alive and all Japan is doing these days is satiating the nerds lame enough to buy figurines because they also spend the money on BDs and such. Anime has stagnated heavily these days, and animation-wise isnt doing much to be desired.

I love the aesthetic of cel-animated anime and one of the best examples of that I can think of is Yu Yu Hakusho. The visuals of that series were just completely bonkers. 15:30-19:00 of this video explains pretty well why it's the most badass goddamn thing ever.



I still mourn the death of cel animation. I haven't seen anything digital that even comes near this in sheer badassness with the lone exception of the 2012 adaptation of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which was able to transcend the lifelessness of digital animation with its excellent direction and truly outrageous color composition.


The switch from cel-animation to vector animation was the beginning of the death of anime imo. Id also agree that YYH is one of the most impressive displays of cel-animation ive ever seen. Then again, this may come down to the fact that the BD remaster was thorough enough to show the subtle detail and grain that gives true credit to the original art. Unfortunately cel-animation was most prevalent during the VHS era (and early DVD era), so most subtleties were lost in budget conversions to commercial media. Only select scenes became truly remastered, and only from titles that were popular. Even a title as popular as Zeta Gundam wasnt even truly remastered (the good scenes are incredible though).
 
As far as anime goes, im more of an 80s/90s fan as opposed to any newer series. Some of my favorites are Zeta Gundam, Berserk (original anime), SDF Macross, Ashita no Joe, Rurouni Kenshin/Samurai X, Gunbuster, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, etc. I like some newer shit like Gintama, Kaiji, Steins;Gate, Code Geass, Initial D, etc, but I find the "best-girl" shit to be a bit nauseating. It is like Welcome to the NHK has come alive and all Japan is doing these days is satiating the nerds lame enough to buy figurines because they also spend the money on BDs and such. Anime has stagnated heavily these days, and animation-wise isnt doing much to be desired.

Excellent picks. Legend of Galactic Heroes is the best. It might not come as a big surprise that I'm also a big fan of Kaiji. Have you seen Shinsekai Yori? That's one of the best recent anime imo. It's not spectacular animation-wise but the story is fantastic, and though the story is heavy on romance it's about as far removed from "best girl"-garbage as you can imagine. (Naturally, it bombed.)
 
When it comes to 80s stuff, I watched the first two Cyber City Oedo 808 OVAs recently, pretty sweet stuff, plan on watching the last one soon.

I don't mind Flash and 3D animation but no doubt that the classic cel material had the sexiest style.
 
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Im not sure how far you have progressed, but unfortunately the show doesnt maintain the level of excitement that it presented in roughly the first 10 episodes. Though tbh, I think the hate for the show grew more because of how overrated it became rather than it actually being terrible. Still worth watching imo.

Right now I'm on the 4th disc, which iirc is about 16 episodes in, where you find out about the 'fake Kira' or just after. So far so good, I always know if I like something or not by how ritualistically I start putting it on to watch and tbh it's been sometime since I woke up early enough to watch a few episodes of something before work and then watched a few more before bed.

Always a good sign with me, I have the attention span of a ADHD goldfish. I get so easily distracted if I'm not totally pulled in. :D

As far as anime goes, im more of an 80s/90s fan as opposed to any newer series. Some of my favorites are Zeta Gundam, Berserk (original anime), SDF Macross, Ashita no Joe, Rurouni Kenshin/Samurai X, Gunbuster, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, etc. I like some newer shit like Gintama, Kaiji, Steins;Gate, Code Geass, Initial D, etc, but I find the "best-girl" shit to be a bit nauseating. It is like Welcome to the NHK has come alive and all Japan is doing these days is satiating the nerds lame enough to buy figurines because they also spend the money on BDs and such. Anime has stagnated heavily these days, and animation-wise isnt doing much to be desired.

I'm also more of an 80's/90's anime fan, that's always going to be where my heart lies with the genre. The way I discovered anime was accidentally catching the second half of the Akira film on late night television when I was a kid, which anybody familiar with Akira knows that the second half especially without context is pretty fucking dark and bizarre. It freaked me out but for ages afterwards I kept trying to find it on VHS.

In the meantime my uncle randomly borrowed Armitage III from a video rental store and after watching that I was hooked. Some of my earliest favourites were Dragon Ball/DBZ, Bubblegum Crisis, Inuyasha, Ranma ½, Ninja Scroll, Orphan, Fist of the North Star, Rurouni Kenshin/Samurai X, Wolf's Rain, Royal Space Force, Appleseed OVA, Perfect Blue, Blood: The Last Vampire, Jin-Roh, Spriggan, Cowboy Bebop, Vampire Hunter D, Ghost in the Shell of course and Patlabor.

I spent too much time watching stuff from the past though and could never quite keep up with what was current and shit. So I am extremely late to stuff that is even like 15 years old already. I still haven't watched Initial D or Scrapped Princess or Steins;Gate or Code Geass. I do like FMA, Chrono Crusade, One Piece for its wackiness and design originality (though long series are fucked in general) and uber-modern (to me at least) stuff like Nichijou and anything by Ghibli or Mamoru Hosoda.

I also have a soft spot for most things done by Clamp, like Fruits Basket, X and Card Captor Sakura.

I'd actually love a nice tight recommendation list from people who are like me and prefer the older stuff but still watch some newer stuff. I feel very n00bie just trying to explore the newer shit.
 
In the meantime my uncle randomly borrowed Armitage III from a video rental store and after watching that I was hooked. Some of my earliest favourites were Dragon Ball/DBZ, Bubblegum Crisis, Inuyasha, Ranma ½, Ninja Scroll, Orphan, Fist of the North Star, Rurouni Kenshin/Samurai X, Wolf's Rain, Royal Space Force, Appleseed OVA, Perfect Blue, Blood: The Last Vampire, Jin-Roh, Spriggan, Cowboy Bebop, Vampire Hunter D, Ghost in the Shell of course and Patlabor.
Basically grew up watching a lot of the stuff in this paragraph. Although, I never liked Inuyasha that much and Rurouni Kenshin kind of plummeted after the excellent second season which was disappointing given how well it was adapting the manga.

I wish Jin-Roh had more acclaim though. It's one of the best works of alternate history/science fiction I've seen and the fact that it isn't talked about more is disappointing, to say the least.
 
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Maybe tomorrow, I'll show how big of a nerd I am and take pictures of my anime collection. But I have a lot mentioned on Cassette's list two posts above me.

I just recently finished Steins;Gate and absolutely loved it. Apparently it was originally a video game, which is interesting because the story does make sense for it to be a video game too. I'm actually looking for a new series to start. I'm going to watch the OVAs of Steins;Gate, but I need another series. Also, I 'm very much forgiving of anime's sometimes weird storytelling. The ultra cute/childlike characters that simply don't exist in real life and then you'll have this supreme idealist who's super brave and wants to save the world. Like anime archetypes is totally a thing, and I'm not sure if it seems outlandish to us because culturally we're different or what.
 
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I'd actually love a nice tight recommendation list from people who are like me and prefer the older stuff but still watch some newer stuff. I feel very n00bie just trying to explore the newer shit.

Since you're only now watching Death Note I'll assume nothing is too obvious;

JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE
Kaiji (recommended this before. Gambling anime, very intense)
Shinsekai Yori (sci-fi fantasy romance horror coming-of-age dystopia mystery ww2 allegory philosophical treatise best thing ever)
Shiki (slow-burning horror story, like an anime adaptation of Salem's Lot if that means anything to you)
Attack on Titan (overhyped but pretty damn watchable, hyperdramatic action spectacle with lots of crazy plot twists)
One Outs (like Death Note if Death Note was a baseball anime. also involves gambling)
Akagi (completes the holy trinity of gambling anime with Kaiji and One Outs, hard to follow unless you know the rules of mahjong though)
Erased (29-year-old man sends his consciousness back in time to his childhood to prevent a classmate from being murdered. Very sentimental drama with strong themes of friendship, I liked this a lot and it's one of the most acclaimed anime of the last couple years for good reason)

Can elaborate further on any of these if you wish.
 
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