Avatar: The Last Airbender

[Escriba]

I don't think it matters who makes the movie, the screen version of anything is usually worse (I'm afraid of the next "Prince of Persia".)

But anyway, if you think that final is dissapointing never, EVER, watch things like Card Captor Sakura or Chobits. In fact, never see anything made by CLAMP studios. In the other hand, animes like "Gasaraki" or "Ergo Proxy" are examples of extraordinary series with a dissapointing end because... well, I can't understand them

[Asso]

Must be the final always a problem?

[leslina]

But anyway, if you think that final is dissapointing never, EVER, watch things like Card Captor Sakura or Chobits. In fact, never see anything made by CLAMP studios. In the other hand, animes like "Gasaraki" or "Ergo Proxy" are examples of extraordinary series with a dissapointing end because... well, I can't understand them

Don't even get me started on that gratuitous debauchery of pedophilia and incest that passes for art in manga/anime. I CANNOT stand anything CLAMP. They are one of the worst group of artists/writers that continuously glorify that sort of thing in their work. But what sickens me more are the hordes of fans that eat it up. ::shudder::

But this issue of extraordinary series with botched up and disappointing ends isn't anything new. It seems to be an imperative when you look at how many of these series and shows are let to fizzle. I've come to the conclusion that a lot of good manga/anime series that go bad are the ones that are milked to death because of their popularity (ie Naruto, Inu Yasha, etc.). They're prolonged for so long because they're huge cash cows for companies but by year ten or volume 40, the author is just so burnt out and doesn't give a shit anymore they could care less about giving the series or fans any kind of decent closure.

Then you have productions that are botched up because of insufficient budget or poor planning. The original Blood: The Last Vampire movie comes to mind. It was a great idea and well done for the budget the producers had to work with, but they didn't have enough funds or time to delve deeply enough into the story until Production IG had finally earned a place and respect in the industry and were able to go ahead with the Blood+ TV series. The ending wasn't fantastic, but the story was nicely wrapped up.

But there are well done productions that are nicely developed and wrapped. A superlative example of such a series is Cowboy Bebop. I have friends who DO NOT watch anime. Absolutely DO NOT care for it. Won't come near it with a 39 1/2 foot pole, it just isn't their thing, BUT when I've introduced them to Bebop, they LOVE it. There's no denying the universal appeal of that show. If you've never heard of Cowboy Bebop, I urge you to put in your rental queue. It won't disappoint.

[Distracted]

I don't generally watch anime, but I've seen a couple of episodes of Cowboy Bebop on Adult Swim and was favorably impressed. Reminded me a little of Firefly.

[leslina]

I don't generally watch anime, but I've seen a couple of episodes of Cowboy Bebop on Adult Swim and was favorably impressed. Reminded me a little of Firefly.

I wouldn't be surprised if Joss borrowed from Bebop. I think I've heard it said that he's an avid anime watcher (probably where he gets all those 'Lolita' ideas, ya know fifteen year olds dating almost thirty year old vampires , but I digress). But it was Watanabe who set the standard for the sci-fi/spaghetti western genre. Another excellent series in that genre that I would recommend is Trigun (It also ran on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim several years ago). Originally a serialized manga (comic book/graphic novel) series that was produced into an anime. I do have to warn you, however, that Cowboy Bebop was a concept produced directly for home video/TV. It's not based on a previously published work. Trigun is and the anime version differs greatly from the published version.

[Escriba]

But this issue of extraordinary series with botched up and disappointing ends isn't anything new. It seems to be an imperative when you look at how many of these series and shows are let to fizzle. I've come to the conclusion that a lot of good manga/anime series that go bad are the ones that are milked to death because of their popularity (ie Naruto, Inu Yasha, etc.). They're prolonged for so long because they're huge cash cows for companies but by year ten or volume 40, the author is just so burnt out and doesn't give a shit anymore they could care less about giving the series or fans any kind of decent closure.

Dragon Ball is a good example too. And Detective Conan (although I find this series quite amusing.)

Then you have productions that are botched up because of insufficient budget or poor planning. The original Blood: The Last Vampire movie comes to mind.

Yes, yes, that's true. And then there are series with ideas or plots I find amusing, but then they come with something bothering or just too unrealistic and don't know how to end (Karekano comes to mind. Although I'm a little ashamed confessing I watched that one )

But there are well done productions that are nicely developed and wrapped. A superlative example of such a series is Cowboy Bebop.

True. Fantastic anime. "Samurai Shamploo" tries but doesn't gets Bebop's development. An OVA I love is "WXII: Patlabor the movie 3". You don't have to know "Patlabor" universe to understand it. I like the story, but what I like more is the sense that a monster wasn't really necessary.

[leslina]

Dragon Ball is a good example too. And Detective Conan (although I find this series quite amusing.)

Yes! I'm a die heard Dragon Ball fan, but poor Akira Toriyama was forced to drag that series longer than he wanted. Then the producers went ahead with that atrocious Dragon Ball GT anime which sucked salty balls. The English dub of Dragon Ball is horrible, but I adore the Spanish dub. I thought it was hilarious how they changed Mr. Satan's name!

Then you have productions that are botched up because of insufficient budget or poor planning. The original Blood: The Last Vampire movie comes to mind.

Yes, yes, that's true. And then there are series with ideas or plots I find amusing, but then they come with something bothering or just too unrealistic and don't know how to end (Karekano comes to mind. Although I'm a little ashamed confessing I watched that one )

I think the problem with KareKano (which is actually some of the better shoujo out there so don't be embarassed) is that the anime was based on a manga that hadn't finished its serialization when it was started, so the anime wasn't a true adaptation of the published work. A lot of animes fail because of this reason. Producers want to jump the gun with an anime to make tons of money when the story isn't even finished yet.

But there are well done productions that are nicely developed and wrapped. A superlative example of such a series is Cowboy Bebop.

True. Fantastic anime. "Samurai Shamploo" tries but doesn't gets Bebop's development. An OVA I love is "WXII: Patlabor the movie 3". You don't have to know "Patlabor" universe to understand it. I like the story, but what I like more is the sense that a monster wasn't really necessary.

I love Patlabor, because its as much a story about people as it is about the machines the people operate. Patlabor the movie 3:Wasted XIII was heartbreaking. As was Patlabor the movie 2. But the entire Patlabor series itself remains one of my favorite sci-fi/dramas.

Another series that is very similar that I highly recommend that's a little on the lighter side with a nice dose of satire is Dai-Guard. The premise of Dai-Guard is this, Earth had been attacked by a creature that had caused massive death and devastation, a giant mecha was built by a private company to defend Earth from this creature, only the effort was a little too late as the conflict ended as soon as it began. The mecha, Dai-Guard, became useless and looked upon as a joke as the years went by. A virtual relic, it was used as an amusement ride for kids to climb up and play in. Ten years later the creature is back and a rag tag team of office clerks from the same company that built the mecha volunteer to operate the machine and defend Earth. This thing is so old and no one's sure how to use it, they have to break out the operation manuals. It's HI-larious!

[Escriba]

Yes! I'm a die heard Dragon Ball fan, but poor Akira Toriyama was forced to drag that series longer than he wanted. Then the producers went ahead with that atrocious Dragon Ball GT anime which sucked salty balls.

Why did you have to remind me that GT crap? Oh, why?! I like Dragon Ball too, and I like how the characters "grow up" (this gives a sense of continuity.)

Producers want to jump the gun with an anime to make tons of money when the story isn't even finished yet.

Best example of that: Record of Lodoss War. Although I liked the OVAs more than the "Chronicles of the Heroic Knight".

Another series that is very similar that I highly recommend that's a little on the lighter side with a nice dose of satire is Dai-Guard.

Thanks for the recommendation, after trying (and leaving) Elfen lied I needed a new anime to watch.

[leslina]

Thanks for the recommendation, after trying (and leaving) Elfen lied I needed a new anime to watch.

Elfen Leid That show scarred me for life. I even counted the total hours:min:sec of my life I'll never get back!

[CX]

I'm a Ghost in the Shell fan, personally...

[leslina]

I'm a Ghost in the Shell fan, personally...

Just the movies or have you seen the two TV series as well? They were quite good.

[CX]

I'm more of a fan of the series.

[thecursor]

Anime/manga in generally is rather a spotty medium in opinion. A few series and movies have grabbed my interest (most were already listed) but for the most part I keep meeting people that call it vastly superior to american comics and cartoons and I just don't see it. A lot of it is unrealistic to the point of laughability, barters it's own credability away on over merchandising, or sticks to a series of highly predictable Jungian archtypes that become so over used that it's practically a sexual fixation (innocent teen girl, sexy but stylish older man, gruff but goofy instructor, cute animal sidekick etc.)

I'm not saying that anime doesn't have a lot of really great high points. For instance, as previously mentioned, Watanabe's Cowboy Bebop has the kind of emotional punch that most american tv shows pray to god for and films like Princess Mononoke [sp] put forward a far better anti war statement then every Oliver Stone movie of the past ten years.

I'm kind of a xenophobe, I admit that, and I know that this shouldn't worry me. But have you ever gone to a Borders, looked for the graphic novel section and seen the teeny tiny area for American comics (David Clowes to Superman) and the massive section for Japanese imports. I some times worry that America is playing catch up in the graphic art form in it's own country. The most popular children's cartoons are now strictly asian (as opposed to just animated in asian like the eighties) a lot of those shows don't feature complex story lines or moral themes like they did when I was a kind (hell, I still remember that time Charbroil from GI Joe told me about fire safety). Yeah, I admit that children's entertainment has always been a marketing ploy to sell dvds and toys but at least American cartoons TRY to hide it, Children focused anime doesn't even bother hiding it.

Part of the reason I like Avatar is that it's aware that it doesn't need to sell itself to be what it is. To the people behind that show, the primary product is the show itself. There's no drive to present a different kind of attack card/character costume/pocket monster, to them the show and it's message (which is surprisingly complex) is their main selling point. Weird that a show created in a America and written by two white guys has a better grasp on various Asian philosophic ideals (harmony, balance, search for serenity) then a lot of the dozens of cutesy Japanese cartoons flooding the market.

[Escriba]

I'm kind of a xenophobe, I admit that, and I know that this shouldn't worry me. But have you ever gone to a Borders, looked for the graphic novel section and seen the teeny tiny area for American comics (David Clowes to Superman) and the massive section for Japanese imports.

Well, Europeans (or Spanish, at least) can say the same about the massive American comic section and the tiny European comic section in our book stores.

The most popular children's cartoons are now strictly asian (as opposed to just animated in asian like the eighties) a lot of those shows don't feature complex story lines or moral themes like they did when I was a kind (hell, I still remember that time Charbroil from GI Joe told me about fire safety). Yeah, I admit that children's entertainment has always been a marketing ploy to sell dvds and toys but at least American cartoons TRY to hide it, Children focused anime doesn't even bother hiding it.

The problem is anime isn't for children. Or not exactly for children as we understand it. They don't try to "moralize" or being educational because that isn't their job. Japanese people have this crazy idea that this is what Education is for (although yes, merchandising plays a good deal too.) For my part, I was a fan of Captain Planet, but I could never stand GI Joe and its way of trying to make me swallow the "American way of life".

Now, I understand what you are saying. I don't think anime/manga is better than American or European cartoon/comic. Some of them are better, others aren't. Just like everything.

Elfen Leid That show scarred me for life. I even counted the total hours:min:sec of my life I'll never get back!

Fortunately it wasn't so traumatic for me. That job was done by Akira before And Saint Seiya destroyed my naïveté, and not for the violence or its illogical logic (or logical illogic) or because I wanted to drown Athena at every second, but because "The Asgard saga" was the most devastating arc I had never seen. All that people, all those dreams and love and faith destroyed for nothing.

[leslina]

I'm kind of a xenophobe, I admit that, and I know that this shouldn't worry me. But have you ever gone to a Borders, looked for the graphic novel section and seen the teeny tiny area for American comics (David Clowes to Superman) and the massive section for Japanese imports. I some times worry that America is playing catch up in the graphic art form in it's own country. The most popular children's cartoons are now strictly asian (as opposed to just animated in asian like the eighties) a lot of those shows don't feature complex story lines or moral themes like they did when I was a kind (hell, I still remember that time Charbroil from GI Joe told me about fire safety). Yeah, I admit that children's entertainment has always been a marketing ploy to sell dvds and toys but at least American cartoons TRY to hide it, Children focused anime doesn't even bother hiding it.

I wouldn't say that anime/manga is SO superior. The market has become so over saturated with, quite frankly, garbage, that the genre has lost a lot of its credibility, particularly here in the United States. In the past five years alone several distributing companies have gone out of business because of over saturation (and to an extent piracy). I could name ten good manga/anime series with plot and substance and someone will bring up Pokemon or Digimon and how oh so speshul! they are and there goes the conversation. Likewise with the stuff that tries to be SO edgy and SO sophisticated when its all just bullshit. Series like the aforementioned Elfen Leid come to mind where its all about gratuitous violence, nudity and shock value but its oh so deep! and again credibility down the drain.

I'm a comic book geek, but the appeal of manga to me some twelve years ago began with a lot of disillusionment I had with several American comic books I was reading at the time. Marvel was going through a virtual mid-life crisis where they were killing off characters and canceling titles like crazy. Or there were MULTIPLE titles of the same super hero/mutant group. Then the Marvel movies started coming out enforce and the comic-verse began to reflect the movie-verse when it should rightfully be the other way around... it just started getting ridiculous. DC was never as bad, and I have always preferred DC to Marvel in their range of characters and titles, but what manga offered, unlike American comic books, was a story with a beginning, middle and end.

It literally was a graphic novel, a story in pictures. Manga offered continuity and progression and, most important to me, closure. I guess my age was starting to show at the time. Open ended things made me crazy. So it was no coincidence that I discovered DC's Vertigo line and other Western graphic novels. All this time there were books that offered what manga offered right under my nose! Who knew there were all these compelling and complex and sophisticated visual stories out there. My current crack is Fables. The big book chains aren't marketing them and that's just sad, but that's why I still do my pulp shopping at the good ol whole in the wall comic book shop, NOT GameStop.

I, too, miss old school Saturday morning cartoons. I lived for School House Rock and the Summer Cartoon Preview on TV Guide. Every summer I knew exactly what I wanted to watch and on what station. Now it's all shitty kiddy anime and Disney and what corresponding toy Burger King or McDonald's will offer in their kids meal.