I was digging around for anime recommendations to flesh out my Netflix queue today, and based on my ratings, these three (among others) were recommended to me:
X, Madlax, Requiem from the Darkness
Can anyone give me some opinions on these?
Here are some of my alltime favorite anime series/movies for comparison's sake:
Lain, Kino's Journey, Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Perfect Blue and Paranoia Agent (and anything else by Satoshi Kon), some of the less kiddy-oriented Miyazaki stuff, and Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ninja Scroll, etc...
thanks in advance!
X, Madlax, Requiem from the Darkness
Can anyone give me some opinions on these?
Here are some of my alltime favorite anime series/movies for comparison's sake:
Lain, Kino's Journey, Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Perfect Blue and Paranoia Agent (and anything else by Satoshi Kon), some of the less kiddy-oriented Miyazaki stuff, and Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ninja Scroll, etc...
thanks in advance!
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SF Bay Area
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Re: second opinions?
Tue, June 21, 2005 - 4:15 PMOk, X is nothing but a long, horrible train wreck, it starts out bad and just gets worse and extra worse the whole time... Don't watch this if you want to be anything other than depressed.
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Re: second opinions?
Tue, June 21, 2005 - 5:01 PMI'd hafta agrre with Terrance on the X series...tooo long and is rather depressing. Madlax is much like Noir if you've heard or seen that one (basically two women assassins trying to find out about themselves), and Requiem from the Darkness is ok, quite fantasy like and has all the mosters to boot and they are a secretive gang, hired to solve cases that are buried in darkness. Searching out the criminal, using skilfull contrivances, they judge the human ego and bury one job after another.
Anyway...considering what you do like...I would go for Requiem from the Darkness as a choice. -
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Re: second opinions?
Tue, June 21, 2005 - 5:07 PMI never saw the X series but I thought the X movie was awful -
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Re: second opinions?
Tue, June 21, 2005 - 7:00 PMSee Ninja Scroll, Perfect Blue, and Evanglion are best of any sciology challegeing series and movies. See Samural Champloo so you can see unedit edition of show and special feature. -
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Re: second opinions?
Wed, June 22, 2005 - 11:00 AMI'm still watching Samurai Champloo (the last disc is somewhere in the mail on its way to me from Netflix, but yes, I've seen all the ones you've mentioned...
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Re: second opinions?
Wed, June 22, 2005 - 3:37 PMHmm, I watched one disc of Noir, and while it was very stylish, I was underwhelmed, seemed kinda predictable. My favorite badass-gun-totin-chicks anime of all time is Gunsmith Cats...it's a damn shame they have only released a couple of episodes of it on DVD, and it was a SHORT series.
Thanks for the tip! -
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Re: second opinions?
Wed, June 22, 2005 - 3:39 PMI wasn't big on Noir... Must-See's from the last year and a half or so:
RahXephon (it bites Eva really hard at first, but watch it all the way through - it's worth it and beautiful)
Haibane Renmei - (by Yoshitoshi Abe, this is absolutely GORGEOUS)
Spirited Away - (if you haven't seen this yet, run out and see it, despite it being for kids, it is suberb) -
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Re: second opinions?
Wed, June 22, 2005 - 4:00 PMYeah, I had read about RahXephon, and it sounded like a major NGE knockoff, and the blurbs on Netflix aren't really changing my mind about it in that regard.
I have seen Spirited Away and pretty much all Studio Ghibli/Miyazaki stuff except Porco Rosso which is already in my queue.
I did read the review of Haibane Renmei, and I will give it a shot since it's done by some of the same talent who did Lain. If you like Lain, give Boogiepop Phantom a try. Not the same artists, but similar storyline.
Texnolyze was done by the Lain folks too, but I couldn't get past the second disc...too depressing and slow, and the story didn't seem to be going anywhere.
thanks for the tips... -
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Re: second opinions?
Wed, June 22, 2005 - 4:07 PMboogiepop I was indifferent about.
Lain is my alltime favorite, and Haibane Renmei, while different, is almost as good. RahXephon surpasses Eva about halfway through, and believe me, I love Eva, it's definitely in my top 5.
Texhnolyze I have only watched the first disc, for the reasons you note. -
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Re: second opinions?
Wed, June 22, 2005 - 6:08 PMMaybe should try any Gundam series or movies, Trigun, and really good anime Escaflowena. -
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Re: second opinions?
Thu, June 23, 2005 - 10:03 AMYeah, I've seen all of Trigun, and some Gundam...Trigun had its amusing moments, but was a bit too slapsticky and silly for my taste.
Gundam, eh, I am just not so into the mecha-driven anime. Evangelion is one of the only mecha stories I could get into, and mostly because it's not actually about the mecha. Patlabor might be another exception to that.
Escaflowne, I have seen an episode or two of, but really, I am not sure I can afford the drugs it would take to make this story make sense. That whole ordinary-girl-turns-mystical-princess bit just gets no traction with me. I prefer my female protagonists to either be more realistic (Lain) or more ass-kicking.
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Re: second opinions?
Mon, June 27, 2005 - 9:43 AMOkay, I got the first disc of Haibane Renmei and watched it this weekend...and I do like it, although it's a bit cutesy and girly in parts...and by the end of the fourth episode I found myself saying "quit your whining!" to Raka...
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Re: second opinions?
Wed, June 22, 2005 - 7:17 PMIt's great to hear someone else sing the praises of Gunsmith Cats. If you liked the anime, you may want to check out the Manga. Also, there is an Anime the same guy did called Riding Bean which was where he orginated the characters of ally Vincent and Bean Bandit (he figures heavily in the Manga), although somewhat different than how they ended up in Gunsmith Cats. -
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Re: second opinions?
Thu, June 23, 2005 - 10:06 AMI have seen Riding Bean! It's great, very funny, even if the art style is very rough, 80's style stuff. I have really never been one to read manga...I know that's shocking for me to say, but hey.
Now, who's a fan of Golgo 13? it's definitely adult anime, but the art is GREAT. -
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Re: second opinions?
Thu, June 23, 2005 - 10:26 AMGolgo 13? Haven't heard of that one. -
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Re: second opinions?
Thu, June 23, 2005 - 10:31 AMI hadn't heard of it until I saw it in a local indie video store's anime room. Google it, it's fantastic. Features a mysterious assassin named Golgo 13 who is sorta like James Bond, if James Bond had no
conscience and were less fond of martinis. He gets his mark every time, and gets more tail than... ;)
As far as I know, there are only two Golge 13 features: The Professional and Queen Bee. It's probably from a manga.
www.ex.org/5.6/30-anime_golgo.html -
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Re: second opinions?
Thu, June 23, 2005 - 11:36 AM
If you're looking for some recommendations I've got a few.
Based on what you say you've liked and seeing as how I think you have good taste (I had similar feelings about both Noir and Trigun) I'll tell you what's been playing at my house lately.
Naruto - really great. But you have to be up for a long ride. It's up to episode 140 and still going. My peeps and I eagerly await the airing of each new ep.
Bleach - Took a good 7-8 eps to really get interesting, but then it takes off. Also still running and is now at ep 38 I think.
Beck - No robots, no ninjas, no big guns, assassins or bounty hunters. It's about a group of kids trying to get their rock band off the ground. The story is great and the characters are really well developed.
Champloo you know about. There is also Wolf's Rain and Witch Hunter Robin. They are a bit slower paced, but have their moments.
As for Escaflowne I rode it out for whole thing and man what a dissappointment. It actually got somewhat engaging after the first couple hours, but the ending was a disaster. What a letdown.
I also agree with the general consensus on X. Not so great.
I'll have to check out Golgo 13. -
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Re: second opinions?
Thu, June 23, 2005 - 1:22 PMheh, thanks...Yeah, I already added Wolf's Rain to my queue based on Netflix recommendations, glad to hear it's worthwhile.
I'll have to check out these ones you listed...isn't Naruto on Adult Swim now? I think I've seen a bit of it while flipping channels.
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Re: second opinions?
Thu, June 23, 2005 - 1:20 PMThanks for the suggestion. It sounds interesting. I'll have to check it out.
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Re: second opinions?
Thu, June 23, 2005 - 5:53 PMI love Gunsmith Cats and Riding Bean. Usually if I mention those, especially Riding Bean, I get a blank look. I even have all the graphic novels of Gunsmith Cats-- at some point I do need to buy the first one in English though-- it's the only one I only have in Japanese. -
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Re: second opinions?
Fri, June 24, 2005 - 12:44 PMI know what you mean about Riding Bean. Most people have never heard of that one. The graphic novels are excellent as well. There is an excellent con coming up on the East Coast this summer. Otakon. If you get a chance, you may want to check it out. It is either the biggest, or the second biggest Anime Con in the country (Ican never remember which). -
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Re: second opinions?
Sat, June 25, 2005 - 6:35 PMAnd it was one of my friend's who introduced me to Riding Bean. She had the subtitled one. I had to tease her/ joke around about watching something that takes place in Chicago and hearing it in Japanese. I own it now, though I have the dubbed version--- I prefer to be able to concentrate on the animation and story than keeping up with dialogue.
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Re: second opinions?
Mon, June 27, 2005 - 9:41 AMYeah, Gunsmith Cats is set in Chicago too...There was a great featurette piece with one of the episodes where they interviewed the director and he talked about going to Chicago with his artists and having them sketch street scenes and making it as realistic and accurate as possible, because to him Chicago is the most American city he's ever seen...and as he pointed out, most Japanese people have only seen coastal American cities like LA and NY and San Francisco.
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Re: second opinions?
Thu, July 14, 2005 - 10:32 AMJust a follow-up...I have now seen almost all of the anime series that you kind folks recommended: Haibane Renmei, Wolf's Rain, Madlax, Requiem for the Darkness, etc...and here are my thoughts:
Haibane Renmei: I'm about three discs into this series, and I like it alot...Rakka annoyed me at first with her timidness, but she is growing on me. The art is amazing.
Wolf's Rain: just got the first disc, watched the first episode last night, and I already like it. The art is great, and they did a pretty good job imbuing the wolves with emotional depth. I am looking forward to watching more.
Madlax: I happened to catch an episode on Anime Network On Demand, and I loved the art style. I just got the first disc of it, so I should have more of an opinion of it after this weekend. :)
Requiem for the Darkness: good art, but wow, can I get some crackers to go with this cheese? It almost felt like watching an animated Tales from the Crypt. :P I barely got through one episode before I shut off the DVD player.
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Re: second opinions?
Fri, September 7, 2007 - 4:48 PMMadlax was disappointing to me. It had too little gunplay (which is funny because I'm not that big on overplayed fight scenes) and not enough motivation for the characters. If you are familiar with any BeeTrain anime, where ".hack//SIGN" has a LOT of talking and no action and "Noir" has almost no talking and LOTS of action, "Madlax" falls in the middle but falls flat. I went into it very open minded (I have sat through some dreadful anime in my time) and this just did nothing for me.
I do recommend "Noir" - mind you, the first 5 or so episodes are TERRIBLE - they are SO Repetitive. I am amazed that ANYONE gets past the first disc. But watch a few eps further and it takes off and isn't as repetitive. It is styled in the film noir style and does a good job of it. I am glad I stuck with it because it is one of my top favorite anime now.
I second the "Haibane Renmei" suggestion, if you haven't seen it by now.
