Topic: Manga and Anime discussion

Loved watching Ghost in the Shell last night and that masterpiece has reignited a long list interest in Manga, especially the mecha and Sci fi branches. Anyone have any recommends to get this going I was looking at Bleach as it seems popular and both 009 and the pirate (which are both available on the Ps store right now). I own Akira, ghost in the shell and spirited away. I prefer Akira and ghost to spirited away. I also hate cgi aka ff the spirits within.

Death Note. Best anime ever. I'd go even farther and call it the best show ever made. It's so good. Light Yagami is also the best protagonist ever. He's also unique in that he's a villain protagonist. I do have to say not everyone likes him though, in which case you'll just side with the antagonist (and hero) L. I can't recommend you watch this enough if you have an interest in anime. It's on Netflix too. I only have one big problem with the series, but I won't say what it is even in vague terms as it could be a spoiler.
As for Bleach, it's a good anime. Very long though, and occasionally a bit too slow. It's a good watch though, just know that it got cancelled before it finished, and some of the later filler seasons got out of hand.
A few other animes I recommend are Full Metal Alchemist, Full Metal Alchemist: Brother (these are two different series, and I recommend you watch them in the order they're listed), Wagneria!!, Nagi-Asu: A Lull in the Sea (very good, but they botched the ending), and Fruits Basket.

I can't get into anime. Ghost in the Shell was okay.

Would recommend you give below a watch if you haven't seen it:

Other than that, it's not realllllly for me!

@kyleforrester87: Ghost is a weird one, but I love the premise and the dark tone. Thanks for the link, but I prefer the game. @Jaz007 never heard of death note, will look out for it, just the advise i need. Ive just bought a portlibor series with 6 discs, got jammy on an ebay auction £4 with £3 delivery woo hoo.

Death Note is a good shout but I would definitely recommend the manga over the anime. Attack on Titan is another cracker. Also Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo and Afro Samurai. All are great series you can't really go wrong with! Movie wise if you liked Ghost In The Shell you should definitely check out the sequel. I'd also recommend Tekkon Kinkreet and Paprika as two of my favourite more "mature" choices.

I agree with @Jaz007 that you should definitely check out Full Metal Alchemist, it's one of my all time favourites. But I would disagree with watching both series. Brotherhood is a reboot which starts out with the same plot but then branches off to follow the plot of the manga more closely than the original series did. So really, unless you have a hell of a lot of time on your hands, I'd say just watch Brotherhood

Oh, also, if you don't mind the violence Hellsing and Battle Royal are two fantastic manga series to read. Hellsing does have anime adaptations if you prefer watching over reading, but only watch Hellsing Ultimate as the other series was poor.

@SteveButler2210 @themcnoisy I'd watch both because Brotherhood skims I've the beginning as to retread the original too much. Plus I felt like knowing some of the characters right off the bat made Brotherhood better.
Also @themcnoisy, Death Note is on Netflix.
Also I forgot to mention anime movies. Watch anything and everything Sudio Ghibli.

@Jaz007: As mentioned ive watched spirited away, I'm not on Netflix as i don't watch enough films to warrant a subscription. But I will watch death note as you and @SteveButler2210 have advised to. And I will check out full metal alchemist the brotherhood version.

@themcnoisy: Netflix has a lot of good animes, so it might be worth a tempory subscription to watch a few of them. It'll be cheaper than buying them on DVD.

Pretty sure you can probably get a 30 day trial

Sounds good, although I wouldn't mind purchasing some of the series you mentioned to keep. As good films and series I watch regularly (terminator 1&2, Aliens, Tintin, fight club, Akira, Home Alone, Naked Gun 2 and 1/2) I'm just about to search for them now to buy If that's too expensive I will join Netflix.

Full metal alchemist is £32 for the complete series 62 episodes. (50p an episode get in) and Death Note is £20 for the complete series. Looks like death note it is come pay day and partlibor being delivered by the 2nd of August. Thanks chaps. Gundam Is too expensive Gubdam F91 is the cheapest at £15 and that's known to be one of the least popular sub series. They are all Amazon prices which as we know are usually more expensive.

@themcnoisy: Avoid Death Note completely on the Internet by the way. A big spoiler in the series is really famous. I envy you being able to watch it without it.

@Jaz007: I will, I'm going in fresh never even heard of it until I opened this thread. Based on what I've read on it so far its meant to be brilliant.

@Jaz007 @SteveButler2210 Bought full metal alchemist episodes 1-13 for £6 including postage. If its good I will buy the other DVDs to complete the set. Will have a nice August ahead of me now.

Avoid Netflix or any pay to download services. If you have to get any service. Get an service that allows you to watch anime/channels from Japan itself. That is the best pay service.

In my opinion. Deathnote is the worst thing in this entire world. It is poorly animated and too many usage of 3d. It is like "Area 88" the tv series, where Area 88 the OVA is like fruit of gods.

A lot of the stuff from the 1980s and 1990's should give you your daily full of Animation. In fact my classmate from Japan in college wrote an report of one series. Most of the new stuff, especially anything translated is not really worth it anymore. You could spend more time getting better at illustrating then watching or playing stuff.

@RegalSin: So what's your recommend? Fruit of gods or area 88?

I don't speak or read Japanese although I did trek over there in 2001, the year before the world cup and I visited Osaka and Tokyo. The trip was strange and really difficult as it was all Japanese (whereas every holiday before or after have had English speakers to some degree) I picked up some cool words but cant remember them at all any more. So I need dubs or sub titles. Japanese is crazy hard to understand compared to Spanish or German as the words all sound completely different.

So to round off I bought 'claymore full series' as well no idea what it is, it was only £7 so bought it. Will stop buying now and give you guys some feedback.

@themcnoisy: Oh man I wouldn't have gone into Claymore. It's a pretty decent series, which unfortunately got cancelled after one season with absolutely no resolution whatsoever. So frustrating. At the end of the day I suppose it is still worth watching, but that soured the taste for me a bit. As for the subject of Japanese, I learnt it for a while when I was younger, and I think as well as the sounds being unusual when you're used to hearing European languages a big part of the difficulty comes from the fact the grammar is very different to English.

Also, I think @RegalSin is suggesting don't watch Area 88 the tv series, but do watch Area 88 the OVA (Original Video Animation). I think by referring to it as the fruit of the gods he's suggesting it's decent. I don't get the problem with Netflix though. It's not some dodgy "pay to download" service, it's a fully licensed streaming service with appropriate remuneration provided to the licensees of all of the content in question, no different to any other streaming service which offers anime.

Also generalising that "most of the new stuff" isn't worth it is simply ludicrous. As with any medium, there is a broad variety of content on offer, and while there might be some rubbish floating about, there's also a heck of a lot worth recommending.

@SteveButler2210: I never knew that, to be fair I'm gonna build a small collection of 20-30 DVDs to replace my sons power rangers and Thomas the tank dvds which he's grown out of. So I'm happy to buy the DVDs or Blurays.

As for subscription services I try to keep my bills as low as possible, ive got 2 houses on mortgages, in a few years that's likely to change. So I try to avoid extra expense. Any cash I have left over I buy stuff I can re sell. Ive just pre ordered MGS today for ps4 and will get another dlc on driveclub and look for a cheap manga dvd. That's about it for the month then. Sad times. Cant wait until 2025

@SteveButler2210: @Jaz007 Full Metal Alchemist has potential, watched episodes 1 + 2 last night. Weird that squeenix developed the series. The first episode jumped all over the place, I really didn't understand what was going on, but episode 2 really came together when you learn about transmogification and the lads past. So good so far thanks for the advise will be watching another episode or two later on.

@themcnoisy:

The first episode jumped all over the place, I really didn't understand what was going on,

That's my problem with trying to watch these kind of series, I rarely get past the first episode as I havn't a clue whats going on haha. I had to watch episode 1 of the Wire 4 times before I followed through and watched the entire thing. Now I feel stupid I guess that's what happens when you're bought up on video game plots and your idea of a deep story is Wesker turning out to be a bad guy.