Looking to getting into The Big O. The whole noirish approach appeals to me.

Have you actually seen GITS SAC? Great stuff. Ergo Proxy is sluggish and slow at times, but I dug it. Similar vibe to Casshern Sins.

Texhnolyze is great and still one of the most fucked up things I've ever seen. Extremely violent and the most fucked up ending ever. If you want WEIRD check it out. The first episode has no dialogue, but it has an awesome style and everything.

If you want power rangers babes kicking ass, Bubblegum Crisis is amazing. I really enjoyed both the OVA and 2040, 2040 I'd argue is more cyberpunk than GITS SAC, which just looks super modern (nothing compared to the movie in terms of cyberpunkness). BGC 2040 is still all metallic blue and green though, which is awesome.


I've only seen the live action movie so far, and it was freaking hilarious.

I'm about halfway through Hellsing, it's very cool and the soundtrack is pretty rad too. The english dub is kinda weak however, good thing I've got it in dual audio.

EDIT: Yeah, it's the first series that I'm watching, Seriously though, a random purple bad guy? Guess I'll find out soon enough.

The original 2002 anime?

You're gonna be disappointed. It was cancelled early, so they just threw in some purple bad guy and ended it.

There are a bunch of OVAs called Hellsing Ultimate -- they follow the manga's storyline more closely in addition to being exponentially more awesome than the original anime. Each OVA is around 40 minutes long, but only 8 have been released so far; it's still ongoing.

Yeah, it's been ongoing since I was in high school. Hilarious to think about...

I grew up with a fair amount of animes on the screen, and they're a great imagination opener for anyone. Yes, I agree that too much isn't healthy (nothing is) but anime in itself is levels up than most shows. Even as a young child I was aware of how characters, storylines, and even camera angles gave depth to a person's viewing experience.

Well I finished Hellsing and yeah, I'm not satisfied. Should of been at least a 26 episode series.

Oh well, guess I'll check the OVA's sometime, but tonight I'm starting on Berserk, bracing for the infuriating cliffhanger ending that apparently happens.

1.

2. Yeah, the Berserk ending is godawful cliffhanger horseshit. It'll really drive you crazy. You might as well skip the show entirely and go read the manga.

But then he'd miss out on Berserk's awesome, mind-bogglingly underrated soundtrack.

I thought The Major's speech was awesome, especially when coupled with the war imagery and the music. "Gentlemen, I love war." But I agree that the gratuitous engrish does get funny at times!

Yeah it was cool for the first 2 minutes, but it went on and on and on and on until there were 10 minutes left in the episode. Holy shit, they just needed to flash up the ranks of his officers as he's talking and show then invasion force.

That explains the fugliness, and why I thought "this guy looks like what's-his-name from Naruto" every single time a new character appeared.

Only five episodes left to go on Berserk, and can already tell I'm going to hate the ending, which sucks because so far I'm really liking the story.

Dude, believe me, it'll become all sorts of fucked-up-ness. It's like a nightmare, and I'm using that in the literal sense in terms of sheer horror and depression.

I couldn't get myself to watch more than a couple episodes of Berserk. I think it's one of those things that's too gory and not kawaii enough for me. The whole thing's a bloody mess, I don't even know if finishing it is worth the pain. Ah well, maybe you guys have way more guts and waaay less love and friendship than me!

On a lighter subject -- Galaxy fuckin' Angel.

If the first couple episodes bugged you, the end will be just lovely...
The manga even more so, but the violence and gore is definitely not the point, its the characters and story that make Berserk great.

I am in hearty agreement with this.

Also, will someone please explain to me what the fuck kawaii means and why I hear it being said all over the Internet in relation to Anime?

kawaii basically means "cute".

Anyone who says that in conversation or "desu" etc, kill them.


Is it really that good? Been talking to others about Galaxy Angel lately, lol.

Well, I'm watching the first season and so far it has been cute and wonderful and awesome (and in space) -- just my kind of thing. I'd say it's not for everyone, exactly because of the aforementioned, but it's really funny nonetheless.

Duly noted, e-carbine is prepped and ready.

I finished Berserk last night... and FUCK THAT ENDING, without a doubt one of the worst cliffhangers I've ever seen.

I also watched the first Hellsing Ultimate OVA this morning, and it is infinitely more awesome than the original series. Really looking forward to watching the next three.

We warned you.

Now go read the manga!

exactly. We warned you, that's all.

OldOne, look out for Ep. 7 (iirc) of those Hellsing OVAs. It's a flashback scene for Ceres and it's pretty dark.

SERAS, DAMMIT. SERAS.

Also, on that very episode:



But for some reason I find Hellsing's gore more awesome and bad ass than disturbing.

Any Haruhiists up in this bitch?

just watched most of Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-Chan and its friggin awesome.

Seconded, Hellsing somehow makes all that gore just make everything more badass than they already were. As opposed like Beserk, where when all of those bodies start piling up, it gets a bit disturbing.

Did anybody else even try to count how many people Guts kills in that series? If you include the manga the guy's bodycount is astronomical.

<--

Considering many battles go by in the blink of an eye, mostly skipped over, it could be in the hundreds of thousands.

One of my favourite animes ever. I'd want to get around reading the light novels some day, too.

I bet Kenshiro's count is 100x more.



WAAAAAATTTTAAAA

To be honest, I consider the Haruhi franchise to be a bit over-hyped. I've only seen the first season and read the first handful of the manga adaptation and came away with a feeling of "it's okay." It didn't hook me like it hooked a lot of other people. In fact, here's a picture showing how I ended up feeling about it:





Agreed! Guts is certainly Gar, but Kenshiro was defining Gar before Gar was a thing. He IS the unstoppable force.

Dude I haven't seen it in half a year calm down. I riffed the spelling off the top of my head.

Actually, it's more that the japanese can't spell most foreign names properly using their syllabaries. I'm fairly sure that it should be transcribed as "Ceres", but in japanese it's written in the katakana equivalent of "Serasu" (i.e. セラス) for lack of symbols that accurately represent the syllables both phonetically and ortographically. So they just went with the way that most closely resembled the pronounciation (or rather, what they think the pronounciation should be), as they usually do in such cases.
Alternatively, it could be some variant of Sera, which in turn is either a variant of Sarah or a short form of Seraphina. But Seras written like that isn't a name I've seen used other than to refer to this particular Hellsing character.

On an unrelated note, after not watching anything for 10 days due to a number of reasons, I've caught up with everything I was watching except for the new Last Exile, and finished Ben-to, Mawaru Penguindrum and Un-Go. The former and the later where watchable but nothing extraordinary (Un-Go worked better when it took several episodes to solve the case, see the Bettenou and Kazamori arcs; Ben-to had practically nothing worth mentioning except the fight scenes and some of the comedy). Penguindrum was... Well, the dude that did Utena was involved on it too, so I was kinda expecting something like THAT. It still left me with the typical "WTF did I just watch" feeling.

About Haruhi... The manga is BAD. The first season might be confusing depending on the order in which you watch the episodes (chronological order vs. broadcast order). The second season has what is probably the best trolling I've seen in anime form, but is worth watching. The light novels are good, and so is the movie.

And now, for something completely different, and more important than any of the above. Recently I was shown this. I've been told it's from a 15 minutes long OVA that was only shown at a Comiket and a couple other conventions, one of them in the USA, and that production of DVDs was halted for obvious reasons (namely, middle left panel didn't please a certain guy in Cupertino). Please tell me it's not true and I have been trolled, because I can't find anything on it. Alternatively, if it does exist, I would be grateful for any piece of information related to it.

while i disagree with you, that pic is funny as hell xD

Claymore is the best anime I've ever watched so far (but just for the record, I don't usually watch anime), and any other anime pales in comparison to how good Claymore is. In my opinion, Claymore is designed for an older, more mature audience as opposed to kids. Having said that, it also has some elements of your typical anime (slaying demons), but Claymore goes beyond mindless violence - it also explores human emotions, hypocrisy, where do we draw the line between human and monster, and the power of the fortitude of one's mind.

Now I'm reading the manga but the wait is killing me! (one new chapter per month). If you are an anime fan, Claymore is a must-watch.

P.S. For claymore fans out there: I've always thought Nocturnal Rites' "Awakening" would be the perfect theme song for Claymore. The lyrics match the plot seamlessly, and the energy is there too. Anyone? Also, if you watch claymore, list your top 5 favorite characters!

Claymore is basically a tamer Berserk, from what I've seen.

If you're interested in the psychological human vs. monster question, you might also enjoy the aptly-named Monster. As far as exploring human emotions is concerned, as well as depicting the horrors of war in a way that moves me every single time I see it, the pinnacle is probably Now and Then, Here and There.

@ Zelkiiro:

Thank you for the recommendations. If I'm not mistaken, you seem to be an avid fan of anime? (Correct me if I'm wrong).

Yeah, I've heard of Monster and the critical acclaim it received. I'll be sure to check that one out sometime soon. Now and Then, Here and There? I haven't heard of this one, but it might just be another classic. By the way, have you watched Claymore before? Or is it that you simply heard others talk about it?

Also, I think another major factor that I find Claymore exceptionally appealing is the (glaringly obvious) abundance of female characters and the lack of male characters. The women are all empowered, independent, intelligent and strong. If the main characters have been replaced with a group of male warriors instead, I think the show will be a lot less engaging even with the same plot kept, since we already get a lot of that. So, do you happen to know any other anime where the leading characters are female?

Galaxy Angel, Lucky Star, Azumanga Daioh and Rozen Maiden

Watched Steins Gate last week. Very good story and cool characters. It gets a while to get the action started, but when it's starting, it's damn fun. I don't usually watch anime, it was a recommendation from my younger cousin. I might start watching some more.

No, but why would you think that I like cute things with ^_^ and :3 exploding everywhere? Is that the impression people get from watching Claymore? Just wondering. Heh.