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Yeah, personally, My favorite Anime is a tie between Naruto, One Piece, and Bobobo-Bobo-Bobo( Yes, that's a real Anime series!).

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I'm finally back, everyone! It's been months, maybe even a year since I last visited this website!

I'm still going strong in my Naruto manga at Chapter 203, which is around the middle of the Sasuke's Retrival Arc. That means I'm getting close to Naruto 2

My biggest thing right now is that I want to find a site that has scanslations of Case Closed/Detective Conan, but no luck so far. Any suggestions?

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.

Quote (Barrylocke @ 25th September 2006 03:15)

My biggest thing right now is that I want to find a site that has scanslations of Case Closed/Detective Conan, but no luck so far. Any suggestions?

I remember I looked briefly for Conan scanlations at one time, and the name that kept coming up was bliink (with two 'i's), but I never found any. Good luck getting into that one; Meitantei Conan has something like 600 chapters, 450 anime episodes, and ten full-length movies. That's a lot of ****.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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600 chapters?! Ooh! Too bad the American fanbase isn't nearly as big as it is for Naruto (that's almost too easy to find)

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.

Quote (Silverlance @ 13th April 2006 18:59)

Quote (Tidu-who @ 13th April 2006 16:23)

Why is it that sometimes in Japanese anime themesongs they have 90% japanese words and then all of the sudden throw in an English word or phrase seemingly at Random?

Because it's cool. Just like a lot of people here think Japan is the coolest thing since sliced bread, the Japanese feel the same about us. That's why you'll often see random english one-liners on shirts and whatnot that make very little sense, or hear the occasional bit of random english in a song.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the ocean...

I'll say again that I'm a newcomer to this genre, and I might not have enough insight to answer this question. But since it came up in the thread and I've asked myself about it, I'll post something i wrote:

The Caucasian features of Japanese anime characters has been an area of substantial discussion on the internet. I've seen some interesting explanations as to why this is. One theory was that Japanese anime is supposed to portray the ideal beauty, as evidenced by the fantastical settings, the eye-catching effects, and the disproportioned females that appear even in its darker settings. This theory went on the proclaim that Caucasian features have come to be perceived as the ideal beauty in Japan since World War II, and just as the Japanese have come to adopt Western values and culture so has anime come to idealize Caucasian features. Of course, this theory was formulated on a white supremecist website I found when searching for “anime” and “Caucasian features,” so while it has some relevance I would also take it with a grain of salt. I think there is something to be said for the Westernization of Japan as an explanation, but beyond the white supremacist theory I think there is a more likely explanation: economics.

The English language names, Caucasian features, and Western values of some anime help to expand the anime market beyond Japanese shores and into the Western world, most especially in the US. It's similar to how American movies will sometimes incorporate Japanese themes, such as the Last Samurai or Tokyo Drift. In the way those movies appeal to American fans of Japan while simultaneously helping to expand them into a Japanese market, anime will sometimes appeal to the Japanese interest in American culture while making their products marketable in America. Since the EU is another important economic bloc, and becoming increasingly moreso, the Caucasian features and Western familiarity also help to expand anime into that market in the same way that video games have made increased headway.

It's also important to distinguish the fact that not all anime is distinctively Caucasian in its presentation. While shows like Fullmetal Alchemist and Cowboy Bebop will have English-named characters with distinctively Caucasian features operating in an overwhelmingly Western world, there are also the Japanese themed shows that balance it out. Often stories will rely upon elements of Japanese history and culture, a good example being Inuyasha, in which a typical Japanese schoolgirl is transported to a feudal Japanese world where people dress in kimonos and fight demons of Japanese lore. And sometimes these two values are mixed, as in Samurai Champloo where anachronistic hip hop elements help to propel a story set in Edo era Japan. Even in shows with a Caucasian theme such as Fullmetal Alchemist, there are certain styles of humor that are distinctively Japanese and that come across awkward in translation except to those familiar with them, such as when the brothers' change to smaller caricatures that engage in more absurd behavior while strange symbols pop up above their heads. Even at their most Western, anime still incorporates certain elements that make them distinctively Japanese.

I don't think that Caucasian features and Western values make anime any more indicative of a subliminal white supremacist Japanese desire anymore than Asian elements found in American culture serve as proof of a Caucasian submission to superior Asian ideals. Both are the result of an increasingly global world where cultures continue to integrate. For certain, Japan is the Asian country that has been most integrated with the West since World War II, and this reflects heavily in its culture. It also reflects heavily in its economy, and I think both serve as reasons that anime will go to lengths to appeal to Caucasian audiences, even while remaining distinctively Japanese.

OK, I'm going to make a bold-ish prediction. Sometime in the next 60 days, I believe that the Naruto anime will finally get its head out of its ass and stop the fillers. I mean, we had a "top five battles" special last week, and this week it's some kind of crazy hour and a half-long special. My guess is that we'll have several more conclusive one-shot fillers for the next month or so, and then the Kakashi Gaiden arc and the timeskip will occur. But **** that, I just want this stupid training arc in the manga to end....

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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I'm watching Nana now, and it's excellent. I started following the manga in Shojo Beat last year and loved it, but I wasn't sure how well an anime would go. It's working out great so far, and it's nice to actually hear the music (the manga focuses on two women, one of which is a singer, so music is really important for her side).

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I had an old signature. Now I've changed it.

Paradise Kiss was a pretty good anime. It had a Franz Ferdinand song for the end theme, which made me laugh.

The animation was amazing, the music was great (I -still- can't get that opening out of my head) and the story sticks pretty well to the manga.
Yay.

Also, the J-Drama based off of Hana Yori Dango was amazing.
I just have to wait until January for the second season to come out.
(Nine episodes in the first season! What were they thinking?!)

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..DDR..Maine..
..Hikaroo-chan no Deviantart..

<Tiddles> And I love how people suggest "Why not call it my great name?????" when their name is clearly the worst thing ever.
<Tiddles> "How about ; Mozilla Xplorer & Mozilla Xpress."
<Tiddles> How about you die in a fire?

Quote (Hikaroo @ 6th October 2006 12:23)

(Nine episodes in the first season! What were they thinking?!)

Pilot season? It could work like most basic cable television channels here in the US, where the first season is as few as eight to eleven episodes, filling out a half-season until more episodes can get cleared. That kind of setup also usually means that there are budget issues with the first production run, and the show would need a successful pilot test season in order to garner funding to create longer, more typically-sized seasons.

I know that both Monk and Firefly (two of my favorite television shows ever) both had situations like that. Firefly only showed half of its first (and only) season before getting funding cut, and Monk had a twelve-episode pilot season before it started up its regular schedule of sixteen-episode seasons.

If that show of yours is in fact getting a second season, then it was just running a shortened pilot season. 90% of all anime runs on 26-episode seasons (unlike the US network television standard of 22 episode seasons), so hopefully that's what you'll get starting this January.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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I have recently had a revelation:
Gankutsuou - Count of Monte Christo.

The story is old and familiar to some. The graphics are...surreal? Oniric? Weird? You be the judge.
Music and voicing is impeccable and I highly recommend it.

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"I fell off the mountain of words at around the 10,000ft mark. Tell my family...they owe me money." -Narratorway

"If you retort against this, so help me God I'll shove any part of your anatomy I can find into some other part. Figuratively, of course." - Josh

"We have more, can deliver tuesday." - Del S

Good old CoN

Does anyone watch 'Avatar'? It's not technically anime but I think it's clear why I'm mentioning it here. I think the show is terrfic.

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"That Light has bestowed upon me the greatest black magic!"

My son loves that show. I watch it with him, and it is pretty entertaining. There will be an Avatar game coming out for the Wii not long after launch that I'm considering getting my boy.

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978

Avatar could be considered anime, they even advertise it in Shonen Jump. I enjoy that show, it's actually one of the only shows (animated or other) I do enjoy very much anymore that stills comes on the air. At first it seemed silly, very Nick-ish, but after watching it to this point, I come to think its very good. Mayber still a little too 'kiddy' for most major anime fans, but still very good.

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I fear my heart and fear my soul
Life goes on, it surely will,
Without me and I wonder:
Will I ever see light again?

Life goes on...

I love Avatar! One of the few good shows on Nick after all. I especially like Sokka and Toph, and I can't wait to see how things play out in Ba Sing Se.

I've gotten back into reading Naruto after about a month of no reading.

And finally, I found a site with Detective Conan finally, and I shall be reading that in the near future. Now all we need is the Mother 3 patch, the Wii's release and world peace, and all will be right!

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.

Weeelllll, I'd hate to see Avatar left out of a serious discussion of better animated enter-
tainment. Maybe if we stretch 'anime' to include story-telling animated productions, versus
cartoons that merely consume time and are drawn slapstick-comedy.

With convergence on animation styles, and the outsourcing used for some productions, it
will get harder and harder to just define anime as purely from asia. After all, Futurama is
drawn in SouthKorea.

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Putting the A's in W lm rt: A11smart, Jobclass: Retailer.

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Does anyone watch 'Avatar'? It's not technically anime but I think it's clear why I'm mentioning it here. I think the show is terrfic.

Avatar is one of the better kid animes out there(even though I believe it's american), I first heard about it from some kids at my high school, so I checked it out. I'll watch avatar from time to time. One of the few kids shows where thinking was involved, which is probably why older audiences like to watch it as well.

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"Have you ever seen a baby do that before?"

Quote (Cloud_Strife510 @ 29th October 2006 12:49)

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Does anyone watch 'Avatar'? It's not technically anime but I think it's clear why I'm mentioning it here. I think the show is terrfic.

Avatar is one of the better kid animes out there(even though I believe it's american), I first heard about it from some kids at my high school, so I checked it out. I'll watch avatar from time to time. One of the few kids shows where thinking was involved, which is probably why older audiences like to watch it as well.

Exactly. Some of the comedy is definetly aimed for kids, but the show also has an air of seriousness, and characters that one can identify with and want to learn more about, like Zuko.

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.

While the writers and creators of Avatar are indeed American (A welcome surprise, considering most people claim American's cannot create good anime) the art is done in Korea, according to an article in the October issue of Wizard anyway. I'll try to find a link, or at the least type the article word-for word.

It is a great show, and a nice change of pace from the 'typical' anime that people watch.

One series I am currently enjoying is Trinity Blood. Hopefully we can get the full series over here, and not just a few episodes.

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This is a webcomic and gaming blog where I rant about nonsense. Enjoy.

I was a soldier, now I just play one in video games.

Quote

OK, I'm going to make a bold-ish prediction. Sometime in the next 60 days, I believe that the Naruto anime will finally get its head out of its ass and stop the fillers. I mean, we had a "top five battles" special last week, and this week it's some kind of crazy hour and a half-long special. My guess is that we'll have several more conclusive one-shot fillers for the next month or so, and then the Kakashi Gaiden arc and the timeskip will occur. But **** that, I just want this stupid training arc in the manga to end....

I really want to watch Kakashi Gaiden. Kakashi is the only character that truly portrays a more ninja-like approach to battles, Whereas Naruto, sasuske, and others just seem to step up and duke it out.
I am really sick of the fillers, Last time I watched naruto was summer, and I was able to fully catch up yesterday. 6 episodes could have been covered in 2-4.
I think I'll take another prolonged pause from Naruto and check out Inuyasha.

and instead of fully quoteing metroid morphball's post on cacausians in anime, i'm just gong to directly respond.
In japan they do find cacausians attractive, to them our big eyes are very attractive, one japanese actress even had eye surgury to make them bigger(Female anime characters often have exceptionally large eyes i.e. sailor moon). They also envy the breast size of cacausian women, naturally being of larger size than asian women(bra sizes in japan are smaller than the rest of the world). Also there is very little difference between the skin pigmentation of japan and cacausians. Hell there are even cacausian men who have a strong attraction to asian women. Asians just find some cacausian qualities extremely attractive.

This post has been edited by Cloud_Strife510 on 30th October 2006 20:45

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"Have you ever seen a baby do that before?"

Recentlywatching/watched:

Ouran High School Host Club - romantic comedy about...nah...it'd spoil the first episode. It's cute.

xxxHolic - first CLAMP anime I actually like. It's about life, old japanese myths and has a hellish lot of references in it XD Black Mokona rocks.

Also, I'm recently reading "Zombie Powder", a manga by the same author as "Bleach". It's...pretty fun XD Chainsaw swords rock.

Edit

Almost forgot. I recently saw the third episode of "Dai Mahou Touge" - a very, VERY, VERY VIOLENT play on the magical girl genre XD

This post has been edited by SilverMaduin on 22nd November 2006 18:20

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"I fell off the mountain of words at around the 10,000ft mark. Tell my family...they owe me money." -Narratorway

"If you retort against this, so help me God I'll shove any part of your anatomy I can find into some other part. Figuratively, of course." - Josh

"We have more, can deliver tuesday." - Del S

Good old CoN

I didn't like Inuyasha. Battles were monotonous, too much whining from every character.

So I checked out Full Metal Alchemist and Trigun.

Full metal alchemist was very good, sadly for some reason, they stopped doing the anime, but the manga goes on.

Trigun was good. Not as good as Champloo or Bebop, but good nonetheless.

so anime so far that I've liked

Cowboy Bebop
Samurai Champloo
Trigun
Full Metal Alchemist

anime that's around alright or so-so
Naruto, Bleach

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"Have you ever seen a baby do that before?"

Some good news! According to the most recent issue of Weekly Shonen Jump, the Naruto fillers end in February! Onward to Kakashi Gaiden!

One Piece and Bleach mangas are getting damn awesome. Bleach is in anotherr combat-oriented arc, so we'll probably be getting nonstop action for at least a year or so. One Piece is between arcs right now, which is awesome, because that's when Oda decides to zoom along plotlines that don't revolve around the Mugiwaras and provide oodles of background info, which means we get more Whitebeard, Blackbeard, Ace, and Shanks. Also, it appears that nakama #3 is finally going to rejoin and nakama #7 is finally going to officially join. Good stuff.

I've been recently watching some anime that's definitely not my style, but is still really fun. For example, I've ben watching Scapped Princess for the first time and I have to say it's better than I expected. Also, I've also discovered that School Rumble is the only shojo-ish anime that I've ever enjoyed, ever. And I mean ever.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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I still follow the greuling series that is Inuyasha. Even though it seriously should be called "Tessaiga: a Story of a Boy and His Sword" now. I kinda miss the days when the series actually had... more heart. XP But all in all, I guess it's still my favorite.

I've also been checking out Death Note now and then, when I can remember when it's on.

I feel that way about Inuyasha, too. I loved it, and then all of a sudden it became just about fighting and upgrading Inu's sword.

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I had an old signature. Now I've changed it.

Meanwhile, I'm reading Naruto 2 manga. I'm on chapter 257, which is in the Rescue Gaara arc. It's nice to see a Sakura that looks like she'll actually do stuff. She was not too useful in terms of fighting in Naruto 1. Once I catch up, I'll choose between Bleach and Detective Conan. What do you guys think I should read up on 1st?

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.

Quote (Barrylocke @ 24th November 2006 20:35)

Meanwhile, I'm reading Naruto 2 manga. I'm on chapter 257, which is in the Rescue Gaara arc. It's nice to see a Sakura that looks like she'll actually do stuff. She was not too useful in terms of fighting in Naruto 1. Once I catch up, I'll choose between Bleach and Detective Conan. What do you guys think I should read up on 1st?

Bleach is easy to find, Detective Conan is hard to find. Bleach is typical shonen but pretty good, Conan is the same thing over and over and over again but pretty good. Take your pick.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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I need to check out the Death Note anime some time. This will be the first series in awhile that I've actually been interested in, ever since I devoured scanlations awhile ago.

And I've always searched for Conan stuff too. It's such a cute (yet gruesome...) series. Although I'd probably lose interest after 100 chapters or so...xD



This post has been edited by Zeromus_X on 25th November 2006 04:14

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OSonic Rave
/ \Last Arcanum
[ ]Strike Raid
XRagnarok

You know lasz, zeromus_x, I've already found an active site that has the manga. www.oblivion-ro.com . I just need to decide what I want to read first.

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.

I used to watch InuYasha and I loved the beginning of the series, but it just kept going on and on and I eventually got bored. Then, it stopped coming on so I gave up. But I really liked the first episodes.

I've also watched a few episodes of Saiyuki, but they're no where near as great as the manga. Saiyuki Reload rocks my socks!

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Why, hello guys! Haven't been around here in a loooong time!
http://dragcave.net/user/LadyTwi
http://www.backloggery.com/ladytwi

I love Saiyuki. I prefer the manga to the anime, though, because even I have to admit that the anime is pretty inconsistent in quality. It tends to shift between 'awesome, can't wait to see what happens next' to 'ugh... these filler episodes... D:'. I really like the Homura storyline, though.

I've also recently gotten into Fullmetal Alchemist. I was bored one night in the summer and just randomly turned it on and it was

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

the episode where Hughes is killed

. I've been hooked ever since.

The Petshop of Horrors manga rocks too. Leon Orcot is awesome! =D

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Come with me so I can show you how to live
Burning the candle at both ends
I’m gripping at the walls around me
Don’t complicate it
I’m addicted to this life
I’ll be your token of attention
All my lies come down to this
-Orgy, "Beautiful Disgrace"