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[Happosai]

That's funny I just rewatched that a couple weeks back. Felt they were wrong to give Maki a super high pitched child voice. =P

For runtime, the JP LD lists 45 minutes on the sleeve and runs slightly over 46, counting credits. The ADV 50 min runtime seems to just be including the post-credits "production portfolio" material. Should be slightly longer than 50 mins as the production stuff goes on for 7 minutes but I guess they just rounded down both that and the general runtime to get a"clean" number. Prob where all the discrepancies are coming from.

Seems like voice casting was a bit odd for some of the roles, I would agree.

I have never seen any of the spin-offs but from a biased perspective...they really don't look very good. Not sure how you could go from:

This:

To this... (Burn up! W)

 

[Space Runaway]

Seems like voice casting was a bit odd for some of the roles, I would agree.

I have never seen any of the spin-offs but from a biased perspective...they really don't look very good. Not sure how you could go from:

This:

To this... (Burn up! W)

Yeah all the Burn Ups after the OVA are a reboot with a diff cast and you can see major changes in popular visual style going from 91 to 96. Like Toshinari Yamashita giving them the design style he'd use on coomer stuff like Nurse Nanako. =P There was also Scramble in the 00s, which had the 96 designs updated to the sweatshop friendly animation style of the period.

I know I watched W at some point during the early dvd era but I legitimately can't remember a single thing except the first ep had some plot involving distracting terrorists with naked bungee jumping...and I only remember that, not due to the episode itself, but because of to a review in Gamefan magazine that shit on it. Not sure why my brain remembered that. =P

edit: Seems I still have that issue. $25 for a 30 min subbed tape. Ah the good ol days.

 

[Happosai]

Yeah all the Burn Ups after the OVA are a reboot with a diff cast and you can see major changes in popular visual style going from 91 to 96. Like Toshinari Yamashita giving them the design style he'd use on coomer stuff like Nurse Nanako. =P There was also Scramble in the 00s, which had the 96 designs updated to the sweatshop friendly animation style of the period.

I know I watched W at some point during the early dvd era but I legitimately can't remember a single thing except the first ep had some plot involving distracting terrorists with naked bungee jumping...and I only remember that, not due to the episode itself, but because of to a review in Gamefan magazine that shit on it. Not sure why my brain remembered that. =P

edit: Seems I still have that issue. $25 for a 30 min subbed tape. Ah the good ol days.

I was the cheapskate buying those $20 dubs. Surprisingly the only subbed anime I recall buying were: Eatman, Rei Rei: Missionary of Love ( don't post on that one here...wouldn't want to get thread locked), and Barefoot Gen.

So, was Burn Up W any good?

I too recall Gamefan having ads for upcoming anime VHS releases in it. It vaguely seems like I saw a promo for Oh My Goddess the OVA I there. I think my sister bought it and I recall it being painfully boring.

 

[Happosai]

Here's a question DGrayson OmegaSupreme Space Runaway or anyone else frequently posting in this thread: was there ever an anime series, OVA, movie that was so boring...you couldn't finish it?

I was remembering what mine were. From the year 1999 - 2014, I spent hundreds on anime releases and sometimes bought anime without reading a single synopsis. For the sake only of collecting (until about 2008), I did very little research into all the titles I was buying. It wasn't only retro anime back then either. I owned some modern anime for those times (the 2000's) but never got into them like the classics. Now, buying without researching can lead to finding some treasures and some duds.

The two that stick with me as being the most boring that I'll admit to having never finished them were Shuten Doji (Go Nagai) and Birth (the 80's OVA).

Shuten Doji I recall buying on eBay under the title Demon Star and later buying the ADV release on DVD. I had the VHS around but never watched it. One day in 2009 while living in a shoebox-sized apartment during college -- I popped the DVD for Shuten Doji out and started watching. I'm not sure what it was about it (I tend to like Nagai anime adaptations) but I recall nothing interesting happening. Maybe it just wasn't my kinda story but I shut it off after about 20-minutes and sold it shortly after.

Birth (early U.S. VHS releases had some weird title for it like "The world of the Talisman")

Visually...it's interesting. But I'm not sure where it was going and with 40-minutes of the movie running with barely 2 lines of dialogue; I gave up. Don't get me wrong - I love strong visuals in animation which is why I boast about NeoTokyo all the time. But Birth simply didn't move me to complete watching the DVD. I still own the ADV release on DVD...but...it was one of a handful of anime titles that was not imported from my Illinois home to my Mexico home. So, it's there in case I ever change my mind...but I doubt that's going to happen.

 

[Space Runaway]

I was the cheapskate buying those $20 dubs. Surprisingly the only subbed anime I recall buying were: Eatman, Rei Rei: Missionary of Love ( don't post on that one here...wouldn't want to get thread locked), and Barefoot Gen.

So, was Burn Up W any good?

I too recall Gamefan having ads for upcoming anime VHS releases in it. It vaguely seems like I saw a promo for Oh My Goddess the OVA I there. I think my sister bought it and I recall it being painfully boring.

Couldn't say. Like I said, I cannot remember anything about W. I don't see myself rewatching it anytime this decade either. =P

For Gamefan, they started an anime review section in the mid 90s(?). It was their scathing review of Violence Jack that made me want to seek it out. They basically called it completely tasteless and for fans of dismemberment and rape. I was really into "forbidden" content at that age so I had to see what would cause that reaction.

For boring stuff I couldn't finish...there was Akai Hayate. It was a 4 episode OVA series and it wasn't awful or anything but I couldn't maintain interest past 2 episodes. I planned to finish it one day but it's been so long I'd have to start over and I don't want to do that...

I usually make sure to finish stuff that I start though there's been many I had to force myself to finish. Like what was that Obari series, Platinum Ordian? After a few episodes I just wanted it to be over.

 

[Happosai]

Couldn't say. Like I said, I cannot remember anything about W. I don't see myself rewatching it anytime this decade either. =P

For Gamefan, they started an anime review section in the mid 90s(?). It was their scathing review of Violence Jack that made me want to seek it out. They basically called it completely tasteless and for fans of dismemberment and rape. I was really into "forbidden" content at that age so I had to see what would cause that reaction.

For boring stuff I couldn't finish...there was Akai Hayate. It was a 4 episode OVA series and it wasn't awful or anything but I couldn't maintain interest past 2 episodes. I planned to finish it one day but it's been so long I'd have to start over and I don't want to do that...

I usually make sure to finish stuff that I start though there's been many I had to force myself to finish. Like what was that Obari series, Platinum Ordian? After a few episodes I just wanted it to be over.

You mentioned the review on Violence Jack and that reminded me of how I was introduced to M.D. Geist, Cybernetics Guardian, and Genocyber. I remember someone giving a condemning review with added commentary on Genocyber in particular. It sparked my curiosity that something like that had caused such an appalling reaction toward Western viewers and only made me think, "it's animation -- it can't be that graphic." I can't say there was anything thrilling about the story in Genocyber and the gore was nothing short of extreme. However, I still didn't feel like it was a piece of garbage like reviewers had posted. They said the same of Baoh, Violence Jack, and I vaguely recall someone slamming the environment of the Devil Man OVA (back then - no one seemed to be pointing out the slightly embarrassing dialogue in the English version). Don't get me started on how much I ignore most negative reviews. I draw my own opinions. I've mentioned this before but with 'Big War's' I recall two anime sites giving it a 1-star review and mocking the English title of the anime more than going into depth as to why it was a 1-star anime movie. I ended up buying it and enjoyed it. Yes, it had more potential that could have been explored but I doubt the studio backing it had the resources to extend runtime and go much more in-depth. The final product I could give a 3.5 out of 5 without bias for a rating but seeing 1-star reviews fly out sometimes makes me ask myself if they didn't sit down with these titles having a certain expectation that no matter what...wasn't going to be met by what they saw.

Akai Hayate...forgot about that one. I recall seeing an episode of it when it popped up on VEOH back in 2008 but I don't recall continuing beyond that likely due to the fact that other episodes had not been uploaded.

Speaking of a boring title (again, I may be repeating myself). In the summer of 2008, I was between jobs and went to VEOH to find uploads of 80's-90's anime OVAs which were either ripped from VHS or directly from a Japanese composite with fan subs. There was this one 90's anime that I ended up downloading the 2 episodes listed...Ninja Cadets was the name. It was a turd. It seems like the writers really tried everything to make witty characters to go on some sort of quest. Anyway, I DID watch the full two episodes as I figured it was going to pick up at some point and get better (some OVAs/series start off slow). It never did.

I'll also throw two more in here which I never finished as the stories were just dragging too much: Knights of Ramune (so awful that it doesn't even exist in several large anime databases). Knights of Ramune embodies everything you could imagine from something late-90's screaming for attention via fan service. Yet for being only 6-episodes, the extreme ecchi environment does nothing to convince an audience to continue watch as the episodes dragged on like a half-dead cat. Weathering Continent we've discussed already but --- it's one that I never finished for the same reasons. It was just too bloody slow and it seemed like the story wasn't going anywhere.

Closing...

This WordPress review by some random idiot gives an idea of how a 2000's anime weeb takes on Genocyber (inserts weird juvenile girls into scenes to "take the edge off"...gross) and makes the inaccurate statement, "If you want more 1990s anime bullshit crap, I recommend you City Hunter, another one of my all time favourite anime from the 1990s." Sounds like someone did their research. The first City Hunter series' that started airing in the 1980's...not the 1990's.

Genocyber – Review – Gore and Controversy

Do you like mindless gore? dO YOU LIKE MINDLESS GORE?? DO YOU LIKE MINDLESS GORE?? DO YOU LIKE…? *throws up* Genocyber: The Animation is a 1993 anime OVA series that is adapted from an…

seeanimeondaniel.wordpress.com

 

[kunonabi]

I've never seen Outlaw Star. Any good?

Outlaw Star killed my interest in anime for years. I just hated it.

 

[Happosai]

Outlaw Star killed my interest in anime for years. I just hated it.

I'm not going to comment too much on a series I had never watched initially. However, I can empathize with certain anime series' souring my experience of anime.

Outlaw Star was running on Toonami back in 2000. At that time, I was setting VCR timers to record the shows I wanted to see but skipping others based on the vague promotion Toonami gave to them that year. I skipped Outlaw Star but it's been like 21-years and I don't remember why I skipped recording it. The blu-ray is still well in print for those looking to buy it but it might help kunonabi if you provided some context as to why you didn't like it. And I'll be honest, I mentioned in early threads that Neon Genesis Evangelion, DBZ, and certain other titles to me were tasteless regardless of what state the writers/directors were in when they presented them. It was a personal opinion which I encourage anyone share here. Trust me, I have enjoyed some pretty tasteless anime titles and still do.

What I can say DID kill my interest in anime for quite some time was the shift anime took in terms of overall story, production, process, and theory around 2005 - beyond. This was the generation of anime that sowed Naruto, Bleach, Wolf's Rain, and many others. I took the extra step of buying these titles by season on DVD and watching them without bias (also assuming anime had not changed much from the 1990's). I was wrong...and I felt that the future of anime was reason to just stop watching altogether.

However, I did end up changing my mind and returning back to classic titles only. Upon realizing that there was an enormous library of anime from the past which to this day I've yet to uncover; I realized that the future of anime is in it's past. I love to hear that there are fans of newer anime out there because it gives me hope that if they like what's running popular now...they'll have that one friend who shows them what was going on over 20-years ago and LOVE it.

 

[kunonabi]

I'm not going to comment too much on a series I had never watched initially. However, I can empathize with certain anime series' souring my experience of anime.

Outlaw Star was running on Toonami back in 2000. At that time, I was setting VCR timers to record the shows I wanted to see but skipping others based on the vague promotion Toonami gave to them that year. I skipped Outlaw Star but it's been like 21-years and I don't remember why I skipped recording it. The blu-ray is still well in print for those looking to buy it but it might help kunonabi if you provided some context as to why you didn't like it. And I'll be honest, I mentioned in early threads that Neon Genesis Evangelion, DBZ, and certain other titles to me were tasteless regardless of what state the writers/directors were in when they presented them. It was a personal opinion which I encourage anyone share here. Trust me, I have enjoyed some pretty tasteless anime titles and still do.

What I can say DID kill my interest in anime for quite some time was the shift anime took in terms of overall story, production, process, and theory around 2005 - beyond. This was the generation of anime that sowed Naruto, Bleach, Wolf's Rain, and many others. I took the extra step of buying these titles by season on DVD and watching them without bias (also assuming anime had not changed much from the 1990's). I was wrong...and I felt that the future of anime was reason to just stop watching altogether.

However, I did end up changing my mind and returning back to classic titles only. Upon realizing that there was an enormous library of anime from the past which to this day I've yet to uncover; I realized that the future of anime is in it's past. I love to hear that there are fans of newer anime out there because it gives me hope that if they like what's running popular now...they'll have that one friend who shows them what was going on over 20-years ago and LOVE it.

I just found it mind-numbingly generic like it was just following a set of bullet points of what makes a good anime. It worked though because everybody else kept talking about it like some masterpiece. I just found most of the mainstream stuff getting traction in the states from that period to be pretty poor so I bailed for awhile.

 

[DGrayson]

I just found it mind-numbingly generic like it was just following a set of bullet points of what makes a good anime. It worked though because everybody else kept talking about it like some masterpiece. I just found of most of the mainstream stuff getting traction in the states from that period to be pretty poor so I bailed for awhile.

It was definitely not any sort of masterpiece but I did enjoy it a lot at the time. I bought the DVD set and watched them all that way. Only saw them once though.

 

[kunonabi]

Man rightstuf is providing like all my Christmas gifts this year.

 

[Space Runaway]

You mentioned the review on Violence Jack and that reminded me of how I was introduced to M.D. Geist, Cybernetics Guardian, and Genocyber. I remember someone giving a condemning review with added commentary on Genocyber in particular. It sparked my curiosity that something like that had caused such an appalling reaction toward Western viewers and only made me think, "it's animation -- it can't be that graphic." I can't say there was anything thrilling about the story in Genocyber and the gore was nothing short of extreme. However, I still didn't feel like it was a piece of garbage like reviewers had posted. They said the same of Baoh, Violence Jack, and I vaguely recall someone slamming the environment of the Devil Man OVA (back then - no one seemed to be pointing out the slightly embarrassing dialogue in the English version). Don't get me started on how much I ignore most negative reviews. I draw my own opinions. I've mentioned this before but with 'Big War's' I recall two anime sites giving it a 1-star review and mocking the English title of the anime more than going into depth as to why it was a 1-star anime movie. I ended up buying it and enjoyed it. Yes, it had more potential that could have been explored but I doubt the studio backing it had the resources to extend runtime and go much more in-depth. The final product I could give a 3.5 out of 5 without bias for a rating but seeing 1-star reviews fly out sometimes makes me ask myself if they didn't sit down with these titles having a certain expectation that no matter what...wasn't going to be met by what they saw.

Though if I am to be fair, Violence Jack, MD Geist, Genocyber, and such all do fall into the trashy b-movie genre and a lot of people just don't like that type of content. It's like trying to make your average person watch a Troma movie. Most just find it tasteless and unwatchable, regardless of intent. Obviously I enjoy that stuff (Provided it's not boring. Trashy is fine but boring trash is brutal). Like I'd watch MD Geist in the same mindset I'd watch something like say, Van Damme's Cyborg.

Anime reviews are something I stopped paying attention to forever ago. It became clear I generally just don't share the same interest or wants of the people who hold review positions and although one can't blindly judge quality, once you've seen enough of this stuff it is easy to discern what's worth taking a chance on versus what isn't.

Speaking of a boring title (again, I may be repeating myself). In the summer of 2008, I was between jobs and went to VEOH to find uploads of 80's-90's anime OVAs which were either ripped from VHS or directly from a Japanese composite with fan subs. There was this one 90's anime that I ended up downloading the 2 episodes listed...Ninja Cadets was the name. It was a turd. It seems like the writers really tried everything to make witty characters to go on some sort of quest. Anyway, I DID watch the full two episodes as I figured it was going to pick up at some point and get better (some OVAs/series start off slow). It never did.

I'll also throw two more in here which I never finished as the stories were just dragging too much: Knights of Ramune (so awful that it doesn't even exist in several large anime databases). Knights of Ramune embodies everything you could imagine from something late-90's screaming for attention via fan service. Yet for being only 6-episodes, the extreme ecchi environment does nothing to convince an audience to continue watch as the episodes dragged on like a half-dead cat. Weathering Continent we've discussed already but --- it's one that I never finished for the same reasons. It was just too bloody slow and it seemed like the story wasn't going anywhere.

Yeah Ninja Cadets was one of those dime a dozen releases you'd see at the video store. It's funny you brought up both that and Knights of Ramune as the director/creator of Ninja Cadets did all the character designs for Ramune(And Maze which you've brought up a few times. He's also currently directing Lupin part 6 which is still airing). Though Ramune isn't (Or wasn't) obscure as it has two television series and 3 OVA series. I believe the one you saw is the final OVA series before they pulled the plug. I never watched any of those so I've no idea of their quality, or lack thereof. =P

 

[Space Runaway]

Some Newtype scans of Sunrise mecha properties:

And some gratuitous merch/toy adverts

Also an advert for the Japanese release of Spiral Zone, which came out a good 3 years after the show bombed in the US. Property had a sort of "roundabout" cycle, starting as a very cool Japanese Bandai toyline that was licensed by Tonka and remade into a short lived US TV show (With new yet inferior versions of the toys due to manufacturing costs) which then was imported back to Japan for a TV and VHS release. Show wasn't very good (Plus you're in trouble when you let Akom handle the animation) and probably looked really sloppy and outdated by the time Japan got it. =P

 

[Happosai]

I just found it mind-numbingly generic like it was just following a set of bullet points of what makes a good anime. It worked though because everybody else kept talking about it like some masterpiece. I just found most of the mainstream stuff getting traction in the states from that period to be pretty poor so I bailed for awhile.

kunonabi Great to hear that you're taking advantage of picking up some of the amazing new titles from Discotek for this Christmas season. Feel free to share that here after you receive some of those titles or have a commentary on any in particular.

Regarding your perspective on Outlaw Star, I can empathize with that but not specifically with Outlaw Star but moreso the push of certain mainstream anime titles which seemed to be on top commercially (talking when anime started getting big in the West) -- didn't all deserve that acclaim. That's in part of a controversy till this day too. If someone comes into a large Western anime circle and states their dislike for AoT, One Piece, My Hero Academia, etc...they'd be cast out from anime circles. This sort of melds into something that Space Runaway mentioned regarding anime reviews below which I'd like to quote in a similar context to mainline anime titles which may not have been that great (this reflects back on us personally as the viewers): "

Anime reviews are something I stopped paying attention to forever ago. It became clear I generally just don't share the same interest or wants of the people who hold review positions and although one can't blindly judge quality, once you've seen enough of this stuff it is easy to discern what's worth taking a chance on versus what isn't."

Same deal with myself. My interests in classic anime tend to sometimes conflict with those in larger communities due to my particular tastes too. To put some context into that without having to look back through the nearly 30-pages of this thread. If someone asked me to go to a private theatrical showing of Akira versus GoShogun: Time Etranger -- I'm going to go with GoShogun: Time Etranger. I've watched and owned Akira multiple times and just never have been a fan of the story. It's one of those movies like Venus Wars that has incredible animation but the story to me just didn't seem that great. It never led me to take a hiatus from anime but I've warned people to not to recommend those titles to me as I do tend to have a strong opinion.

Though if I am to be fair, Violence Jack, MD Geist, Genocyber, and such all do fall into the trashy b-movie genre and a lot of people just don't like that type of content. It's like trying to make your average person watch a Troma movie. Most just find it tasteless and unwatchable, regardless of intent. Obviously I enjoy that stuff (Provided it's not boring. Trashy is fine but boring trash is brutal). Like I'd watch MD Geist in the same mindset I'd watch something like say, Van Damme's Cyborg.

Anime reviews are something I stopped paying attention to forever ago. It became clear I generally just don't share the same interest or wants of the people who hold review positions and although one can't blindly judge quality, once you've seen enough of this stuff it is easy to discern what's worth taking a chance on versus what isn't.



Yeah Ninja Cadets was one of those dime a dozen releases you'd see at the video store. It's funny you brought up both that and Knights of Ramune as the director/creator of Ninja Cadets did all the character designs for Ramune(And Maze which you've brought up a few times. He's also currently directing Lupin part 6 which is still airing). Though Ramune isn't (Or wasn't) obscure as it has two television series and 3 OVA series. I believe the one you saw is the final OVA series before they pulled the plug. I never watched any of those so I've no idea of their quality, or lack thereof. =P

Not sure how the director/creator of Ninja Cadets and Ramune was trusted with Lupin part 6. What role was he hired for with them.

Some Newtype scans of Sunrise mecha properties:



And some gratuitous merch/toy adverts



Also an advert for the Japanese release of Spiral Zone, which came out a good 3 years after the show bombed in the US. Property had a sort of "roundabout" cycle, starting as a very cool Japanese Bandai toyline that was licensed by Tonka and remade into a short lived US TV show (With new yet inferior versions of the toys due to manufacturing costs) which then was imported back to Japan for a TV and VHS release. Show wasn't very good (Plus you're in trouble when you let Akom handle the animation) and probably looked really sloppy and outdated by the time Japan got it. =P

 

[Space Runaway]

Not sure how the director/creator of Ninja Cadets and Ramune was trusted with Lupin part 6. What role was he hired for with them.

He's the series director. He's mainly an talented animator and has only done a handful of directorial work throughout his career. He was a second unit director on the Lupin Prisoner of the Past tv special, so I guess they felt he was qualified to helm part 6.

 

[Happosai]

kunonabi Great to hear that you're taking advantage of picking up some of the amazing new titles from Discotek for this Christmas season. Feel free to share that here after you receive some of those titles or have a commentary on any in particular.

Regarding your perspective on Outlaw Star, I can empathize with that but not specifically with Outlaw Star but moreso the push of certain mainstream anime titles which seemed to be on top commercially (talking when anime started getting big in the West) -- didn't all deserve that acclaim. That's in part of a controversy till this day too. If someone comes into a large Western anime circle and states their dislike for AoT, One Piece, My Hero Academia, etc...they'd be cast out from anime circles. This sort of melds into something that Space Runaway mentioned regarding anime reviews below which I'd like to quote in a similar context to mainline anime titles which may not have been that great (this reflects back on us personally as the viewers): "

Anime reviews are something I stopped paying attention to forever ago. It became clear I generally just don't share the same interest or wants of the people who hold review positions and although one can't blindly judge quality, once you've seen enough of this stuff it is easy to discern what's worth taking a chance on versus what isn't."

Same deal with myself. My interests in classic anime tend to sometimes conflict with those in larger communities due to my particular tastes too. To put some context into that without having to look back through the nearly 30-pages of this thread. If someone asked me to go to a private theatrical showing of Akira versus GoShogun: Time Etranger -- I'm going to go with GoShogun: Time Etranger. I've watched and owned Akira multiple times and just never have been a fan of the story. It's one of those movies like Venus Wars that has incredible animation but the story to me just didn't seem that great. It never led me to take a hiatus from anime but I've warned people to not to recommend those titles to me as I do tend to have a strong opinion.


Not sure how the director/creator of Ninja Cadets and Ramune was trusted with Lupin part 6. What role was he hired for with them.

He's the series director. He's mainly an talented animator and has only done a handful of directorial work throughout his career. He was a second unit director on the Lupin Prisoner of the Past tv special, so I guess they felt he was qualified to helm part 6.

Glad to see they picked a quality tenured professional to pick that series director job up Meanwhile, you've got legends like Kawajiri working on storyboarding.

Regarding that merchandising - quite amazing that so many items were produced and to think most series creators never saw a penny of that or even knew about the products. Same deal with American animators.

With Spiral Zone, do you think it may also have been the time in which the series was introduced?. It seemed like American audiences were bored of new action series at that time as so many were pushed out in the 80's. I recall action series having to adopt a semi-comedic routine to hold up on a network in the early 90's. So, I get why Americans weren't having that at the time.

 

[Space Runaway]

Glad to see they picked a quality tenured professional to pick that series director job up Meanwhile, you've got legends like Kawajiri working on storyboarding.

Regarding that merchandising - quite amazing that so many items were produced and to think most series creators never saw a penny of that or even knew about the products. Same deal with American animators.

With Spiral Zone, do you think it may also have been the time in which the series was introduced?. It seemed like American audiences were bored of new action series at that time as so many were pushed out in the 80's. I recall action series having to adopt a semi-comedic routine to hold up on a network in the early 90's. So, I get why Americans weren't having that at the time.

There's so much more Gundam merch than that it's not even funny. Gunpla in particular is constantly being churned out.

For Spiral Zone, 87 was definitely a glut year where these cartoons and their store product were hitting critical mass(They were also about to become too expensive to produce due to the dollar/yen exchange crash, which led to Japan getting dumped/bypassed in favor of cheaper Korean studios). It didn't go the comedy route at all but it definitely got lost in the suffle along with stuff like Visionaries, Dinosaucers and Starcom. That said though, although the cocnept was cool it wasn't really a good show, even by the standards of the time. Plus it didn't seem to see much syndicated airings due to it's lack of popularity. The toys themselves were cool but that was a hard market to crack at that point too.

 

[Happosai]

There's so much more Gundam merch than that it's not even funny. Gunpla in particular is constantly being churned out.

For Spiral Zone, 87 was definitely a glut year where these cartoons and their store product were hitting critical mass(They were also about to become too expensive to produce due to the dollar/yen exchange crash, which led to Japan getting dumped/bypassed in favor of cheaper Korean studios). It didn't go the comedy route at all but it definitely got lost in the suffle along with stuff like Visionaries, Dinosaucers and Starcom. That said though, although the cocnept was cool it wasn't really a good show, even by the standards of the time. Plus it didn't seem to see much syndicated airings due to it's lack of popularity. The toys themselves were cool but that was a hard market to crack at that point too.

It is a good historical benchmark in documenting how merchandising was handled when Japan was in the bubble economy. I like PVC figures of today but most are made in China. Still, a lot have been hand painted and aren't that bad. There's just a lack of variety. When I picked up my Lupin figures, I wanted red jacket Lupin but only Green was being produced at that time.

Aside from a few set items, I never got big into collecting anime figures. I'm kinda glad I didn't as I've seen collections go up for sale and not budge a bit sales wise. I no longer resell my anime collection though. Hard lessons were learned after selling some now hard-to-find oop titles. I recall selling a Lupin movies box set back in 2012 for $40 and a week later seeing the store slap a $90 price tag on it.

 

[Space Runaway]

It is a good historical benchmark in documenting how merchandising was handled when Japan was in the bubble economy. I like PVC figures of today but most are made in China. Still, a lot have been hand painted and aren't that bad. There's just a lack of variety. When I picked up my Lupin figures, I wanted red jacket Lupin but only Green was being produced at that time.

Aside from a few set items, I never got big into collecting anime figures. I'm kinda glad I didn't as I've seen collections go up for sale and not budge a bit sales wise. I no longer resell my anime collection though. Hard lessons were learned after selling some now hard-to-find oop titles. I recall selling a Lupin movies box set back in 2012 for $40 and a week later seeing the store slap a $90 price tag on it.

Yeah I used to pick up some figures like the Yamato/Arcadia Macross valkyries, Figuarts or the Figma Guyvers and stuff like that but figure prices have risen to more than I feel they're worth. Plus they take up so much room and if they have really nice boxes I'm always inclined to keep those, which are a big waste of space. =P

I did also get into Gunpla a few years ago. Started when I had fun building a VOTOMS Scopedog which led me checking out modern Gundam kits. Though there were only maybe a dozen Gundam mecha I liked enough to want to build and the prices on those started to skyrocket not long after I got into it. Stuff that was $30 is currently selling for $80 and I'm not willing to play like $200 just to build a Rick Dias. =P Personally it's all for the better though as it was all taking up too much space and I have enough trouble storing all my videogames and movies. First (For now) world problems.

 

[Happosai]

Yeah I used to pick up some figures like the Yamato/Arcadia Macross valkyries, Figuarts or the Figma Guyvers and stuff like that but figure prices have risen to more than I feel they're worth. Plus they take up so much room and if they have really nice boxes I'm always inclined to keep those, which are a big waste of space. =P

I did also get into Gunpla a few years ago. Started when I had fun building a VOTOMS Scopedog which led me checking out modern Gundam kits. Though there were only maybe a dozen Gundam mecha I liked enough to want to build and the prices on those started to skyrocket not long after I got into it. Stuff that was $30 is currently selling for $80 and I'm not willing to play like $200 just to build a Rick Dias. =P Personally it's all for the better though as it was all taking up too much space and I have enough trouble storing all my videogames and movies. First (For now) world problems.

Sounds cool and feel free to share pictures here of those you did collect. I'll admit that there are a few figures I wanted to pick up but just grew out of it as I entered my 30's. Last one I bought was a figure of Cutey Honey doing a back flip. Chinese too but I forget the manufacturer.

On the topic of our big movie and game collections. Mine isn't huge on anime but I'd be happy to share photos of the physical collection around 100 titles or more. If you posted the sleeves of your collection alone, I could eyeball it and attempt to identify the full inventory. Just had me thinking that no one here's ever shared photos of their collection.

 

[kunonabi]

Yeah, I got priced out of scale figures sometime back. I mostly switched to just buying Kotobukiya Bishoujo stuff and figma/figuarts. Figma has started releasing less and less stuff of interest though and I'm getting fed up with Figuarts due their exclusive BS and them pretty much only making Mandalorian stuff as far as Star Wars goes. I've ramped up the blu-ray buying so most of my money goes there although I'm starting to get suckered into a couple of Super7's Ultimate lines much to my dismay.

My brother is big into Gunpla these days though.

 

[Space Runaway]

Sounds cool and feel free to share pictures here of those you did collect. I'll admit that there are a few figures I wanted to pick up but just grew out of it as I entered my 30's. Last one I bought was a figure of Cutey Honey doing a back flip. Chinese too but I forget the manufacturer.

On the topic of our big movie and game collections. Mine isn't huge on anime but I'd be happy to share photos of the physical collection around 100 titles or more. If you posted the sleeves of your collection alone, I could eyeball it and attempt to identify the full inventory. Just had me thinking that no one here's ever shared photos of their collection.

My movies and figures on are shelves and I don't want to post those as I don't want any chance of my "real life" being identified (Not on this forum anyway). =P If you really want I can photo my anime blurays at some point since most of those recent purchases are in a literal stack against a wall...

Yeah, I got priced out of scale figures sometime back. I mostly switched to just buying Kotobukiya Bishoujo stuff and figma/figuarts. Figma has started releasing less and less stuff of interest though and I'm getting fed up with Figuarts due their exclusive BS and them pretty much only making Mandalorian stuff as far as Star Wars goes. I've ramped up the blu-ray buying so most of my money goes there although I'm starting to get suckered into a couple of Super7's Ultimate lines much to my dismay.

My brother is big into Gunpla these days though.

Not anime but I've been eyeing those Ultimate G.I. Joes Super7 has up for pre-order. I don't like the scale but no one has done toon accurate versions before and they look good in the publicity photos...but Super7's rep is pretty questionable so I'm not sure if I should take a chance.

 

[kunonabi]

My movies and figures on are shelves and I don't want to post those as I don't want any chance of my "real life" being identified (Not on this forum anyway). =P If you really want I can photo my anime blurays at some point since most of those recent purchases are in a literal stack against a wall...



Not anime but I've been eyeing those Ultimate G.I. Joes Super7 has up for pre-order. I don't like the scale but no one has done toon accurate versions before and they look good in the publicity photos...but Super7's rep is pretty questionable so I'm not sure if I should take a chance.

Yeah, I didn't care for for how they handled the He-Man lines and the She-Ra figure I have doesn't stand well at all. But cartoon style G. I. Joe's have been something I've really wanted too. I've also wanted to get some sort of power ranger line collection but I don't want Hasbros junk and the Japanese stuff is a little scattershot for me. The real tipping point for me is Silverhawks though. Whenever my dad used to go on trips for work he would bring me back a Silverhawks toy so I can't skip a new line to sort of stand in for them since I lost my originals when we moved.

 

[JunkerWoland]

Outside a few ReAction figures, Super7 hasn't done much to really interest me, particularly in their higher-end lines. The newer Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are tempting, but my feeling is I can't own just one turtle, while also being unable to bring myself to spend $200+ on all four of them.

In a more general sense, it's unfortunate how the whole plastic market has essentially converged around two, extreme poles: cheap junk and high-priced collectables aimed at adults (and sometimes teens). I probably wouldn't even mind so much, except too often the money spent on collectable toys & figures doesn't match the end quality. Of course, my view is the difference between people who casually purchase the occasional product and those who actively collect and tolerate lackluster plastic, bad joints, poor paint jobs, and awkward construction.

The real tipping point for me is Silverhawks though.

Admittedly, I wasn't a Silverhawks devotee and this isn't in any way a novel comment, but the lack of chromium completely kills any interest I could ever have in Super7's figures. There's also the cynical thought of wondering, if the initial lines sell, will the company return with higher-priced, chromium variants?

More generally, again, I wish we'd see the return of chromium for higher-end toys. I get not wanting to give the stuff to kids and both the factors of cost and manufacturing options, but too often metallic paint just doesn't provide the same impact, especially for accent pieces.

 

[kunonabi]

Im fine without the chromium although I do want them to just shut up and show off this "amazing" new paint they've supposedly cooked up.

But yeah the toy market is dreadful, no doubt about that.

 

[JunkerWoland]

Im fine without the chromium although I do want them to just shut up and show off this "amazing" new paint they've supposedly cooked up.

I haven't followed the release enough to have read about "amazing" paint applications. Hopefully they do give fans something cool. Going by the prototype images, I was disappointed by the hawks' body paint not even being metallic (though that has its own issues).

 

[Space Runaway]

Yeah the owner of Super7 claimed they weren't going full vac metal because of issues it causes with the articulation and construction of said articulation. I've heard people refute this but I've no knowledge on such. The general articulation of Super7's stuff seems somewhat outdated to begin with but eh...=/

And like kunonabi I am curious to see this more metallic-ish paint they're supposedly planning to use, which isn't on any of the renders.

 

[JunkerWoland]

Not having a dog in this race, I'm more than willing to believe claims the chrome application would cause issues with articulation and construction. I'm also sure one can find some other toy or source to completely contradict this notion. All I do know is Silverhawks for me will always be shiny-chrome toys, rather than the actual show that inspired them. Similar to what I wrote prior, for the price, I just hope Super7 gives people something cool, since the mock-up images are pretty drab, even if more cartoon accurate.

 

[kunonabi]

Yeah, for the price I really hope they hit it out of the park. They bought the IP so one would hope they put some extra effort behind it.

 

[Space Runaway]

Recently finished up Acrobunch. I had no intention of watching (let alone buying) this series but it was super cheap on Right Stuf's BF sale and it was only 24 episodes so I gave it a shot. Luckily I was pleasantly surprised as it was a fairly enjoyable show.

If you've seen giant robot shows from the era then you generally know what to expect. Heroes have several vehicles that combine into a seemingly invincible giant robot (And unless I spaced out, I don't believe it's ever explained why Acrobunch is so invincible or how it was built by what appears to be a 6 man operation, only one of which is an adult) and foil the villains each episode.

This one is a bit different in that it doesn't have the weekly giant monster or them quashing the villains goofball plan of the week. Basically, two parties are after a mysterious treasure called Quaschika (And I hope you like that name, as they say it at least a dozen times each episode). The heroes, an almost Brady Bunch size family, just want to find it as an archeological discovery of something that is supposedly mere legend. Meanwhile the villains, known as the Goblins, are some ancient race banished to live beneath the Earth and believe finding Quaschika will grant them some power that will allow them to reclaim the surface for their own. Each episode has our heroes checking out a different archeological area that has a legend which may pertain to Quaschika, while the villains will just so happen to have the same idea (Though this ends up being explained in the final episode). They clash and generally it's always a trap for those seeking Quaschika, which leads to the whole area blowing up. As cheesy as that sounds, it does alleviate the problem of how the big bad doesn't demote or kill his generals for failing week after week. Each ep is framed around a particular story and although Jun and his father are the leads, they don't get the kind of focus leads usually receive and each episode lends focus on a different family member.

It's mostly that formula until the last several episodes where the Earth governments finally notice there's been constant destructive battles with some underground menace, at which point the series then adopts this global war backdrop. And I won't spoil it but although there's some dark moments here and there, the series is generally very light hearted and I was surprised to see the final episode go somewhere that's rather reminiscent of Ideon.

Now this is from 1982 and it's very much a transitional show, with a large amount of it still being rooted in the 70s giant robot style (Just look a lot of the saucer ships or the rather questionable Acrobunch itself) while also having a lot of what would become the mid-80s style constantly coming through. The production is handled by Kokusai Eigasha, who was responsible for the J9 series among others and is constantly shifting directors each episode, with some more in tune with the times than others. This leads to some episodes looking old and others looking fairly (then) modern.

A notable standout would be episode 11, which is directed by Kazuhiro Ochi from the newly formed Kaname Productions. It has a totally different look and animation style from the rest of the series.

Spoiler: NSFW

There's more I could say but this is already overly wordy and rambly, so I'll just say it's not mega standout or anything but it's a fun solid giant robot series from the early 80s and if you like that stuff then you should consider giving it a watch.

 

[mortal]

 

[Happosai]

Recently finished up Acrobunch. I had no intention of watching (let alone buying) this series but it was super cheap on Right Stuf's BF sale and it was only 24 episodes so I gave it a shot. Luckily I was pleasantly surprised as it was a fairly enjoyable show.

If you've seen giant robot shows from the era then you generally know what to expect. Heroes have several vehicles that combine into a seemingly invincible giant robot (And unless I spaced out, I don't believe it's ever explained why Acrobunch is so invincible or how it was built by what appears to be a 6 man operation, only one of which is an adult) and foil the villains each episode.

This one is a bit different in that it doesn't have the weekly giant monster or them quashing the villains goofball plan of the week. Basically, two parties are after a mysterious treasure called Quaschika (And I hope you like that name, as they say it at least a dozen times each episode). The heroes, an almost Brady Bunch size family, just want to find it as an archeological discovery of something that is supposedly mere legend. Meanwhile the villains, known as the Goblins, are some ancient race banished to live beneath the Earth and believe finding Quaschika will grant them some power that will allow them to reclaim the surface for their own. Each episode has our heroes checking out a different archeological area that has a legend which may pertain to Quaschika, while the villains will just so happen to have the same idea (Though this ends up being explained in the final episode). They clash and generally it's always a trap for those seeking Quaschika, which leads to the whole area blowing up. As cheesy as that sounds, it does alleviate the problem of how the big bad doesn't demote or kill his generals for failing week after week. Each ep is framed around a particular story and although Jun and his father are the leads, they don't get the kind of focus leads usually receive and each episode lends focus on a different family member.

It's mostly that formula until the last several episodes where the Earth governments finally notice there's been constant destructive battles with some underground menace, at which point the series then adopts this global war backdrop. And I won't spoil it but although there's some dark moments here and there, the series is generally very light hearted and I was surprised to see the final episode go somewhere that's rather reminiscent of Ideon.



Now this is from 1982 and it's very much a transitional show, with a large amount of it still being rooted in the 70s giant robot style (Just look a lot of the saucer ships or the rather questionable Acrobunch itself) while also having a lot of what would become the mid-80s style constantly coming through. The production is handled by Kokusai Eigasha, who was responsible for the J9 series among others and is constantly shifting directors each episode, with some more in tune with the times than others. This leads to some episodes looking old and others looking fairly (then) modern.

A notable standout would be episode 11, which is directed by Kazuhiro Ochi from the newly formed Kaname Productions. It has a totally different look and animation style from the rest of the series.



There's more I could say but this is already overly wordy and rambly, so I'll just say it's not mega standout or anything but it's a fun solid giant robot series from the early 80s and if you like that stuff then you should consider giving it a watch.

I'm glad to hear that you were able to pick up the Acrobunch set. I know you had mentioned it in a previous post in the thread. Based on what I read on your analysis -- it makes it sound much better than I think one would have expected. That - again, is why I take risks till this day buying classic titles which review sites have warned "never to watch" as they are not so great and I tend to have a very different opinion...except with "Judge." The anime OVA Judge is one of those few in which I agree 100% with those who gave it 1-star reviews.
I'd love to pick up Acrobunch myself but it would only be possible if 3rd-party vendors or Amazon-direct were willing to ship to Mexico. As previously mentioned...I don't do business with Rightstuf...even again.

I also want to thank Space Runaway runaway for all these amazing threads in which you share a small booklet of screenshots with everyone here which goes a bit more than watching a trailer. A very unique touch to your posts, sir.

As for me, I'm not ashamed to admit that about 2-weeks ago that my wife and I decided to watch the Discotek release of Night Walker.

Like most, I would have never even known this anime existed had it not been my recent re-watching of CPM trailers. Then it occurred to me that I had actually purchased this title back in Illinois when I was about 17-years old. I bought it on eBay and the CPM release was split into 2 DVDs at that time. I never found part 2 and I think I knew I was jumping into an OVA that would be left incomplete (part 2 back in the early 2000's on eBay was like $50 which is the price you'd pay now to buy the full OVA from Discotek). I remembered nothing of the episodes, really.
Long story short here's what I can say:

- Animation is typical mid-late 90's quality...sub-par and not too appealing
- The story was surprisingly decent and seemed to have more to it
- The last episode seems to lead you down a very dark and nihilistic theme and but turns around to save viewers from a Berserk TV-like ending
- Certain anime tropes are common: sassy secretary, bumbling high school part-time office keep with crush on lead, shoulder fairly (tiny creature submitted in for comic relief), lead character with serious and seemingly non-caring attitude; yet...turns out to be sensitive and more human than...vampire, fairly predictable villains

Anyway, anyone looking for a vampire-like 90's anime which (in my book) is 50-times better than Vampire Princess Miyu; check it out.

 

[kunonabi]

I'm glad to hear that you were able to pick up the Acrobunch set. I know you had mentioned it in a previous post in the thread. Based on what I read on your analysis -- it makes it sound much better than I think one would have expected. That - again, is why I take risks till this day buying classic titles which review sites have warned "never to watch" as they are not so great and I tend to have a very different opinion...except with "Judge." The anime OVA Judge is one of those few in which I agree 100% with those who gave it 1-star reviews.
I'd love to pick up Acrobunch myself but it would only be possible if 3rd-party vendors or Amazon-direct were willing to ship to Mexico. As previously mentioned...I don't do business with Rightstuf...even again.

I also want to thank Space Runaway runaway for all these amazing threads in which you share a small booklet of screenshots with everyone here which goes a bit more than watching a trailer. A very unique touch to your posts, sir.

As for me, I'm not ashamed to admit that about 2-weeks ago that my wife and I decided to watch the Discotek release of Night Walker.

Like most, I would have never even known this anime existed had it not been my recent re-watching of CPM trailers. Then it occurred to me that I had actually purchased this title back in Illinois when I was about 17-years old. I bought it on eBay and the CPM release was split into 2 DVDs at that time. I never found part 2 and I think I knew I was jumping into an OVA that would be left incomplete (part 2 back in the early 2000's on eBay was like $50 which is the price you'd pay now to buy the full OVA from Discotek). I remembered nothing of the episodes, really.
Long story short here's what I can say:

- Animation is typical mid-late 90's quality...sub-par and not too appealing
- The story was surprisingly decent and seemed to have more to it
- The last episode seems to lead you down a very dark and nihilistic theme and but turns around to save viewers from a Berserk TV-like ending
- Certain anime tropes are common: sassy secretary, bumbling high school part-time office keep with crush on lead, shoulder fairly (tiny creature submitted in for comic relief), lead character with serious and seemingly non-caring attitude; yet...turns out to be sensitive and more human than...vampire, fairly predictable villains

Anyway, anyone looking for a vampire-like 90's anime which (in my book) is 50-times better than Vampire Princess Miyu; check it out.

Sounds like something I'd dig.

 

[Happosai]

Sounds like something I'd dig.

I recommend it and possibly buying it before it inflates more in price too. It's very beautifully packaged but I postponed buying until my birthday (October) as it had been out of stock on and off.

 

[kunonabi]

Just got from back the Macross Plus theatrical screening. Movie is still bloody excellent.

I'll keep an eye out for NW then.

 

[Happosai]

Just got from back the Macross Plus theatrical screening. Movie is still bloody excellent.

I'll keep an eye out for NW then.

My wife has been asking me to buy Macross Plus for about a year now -- sounds like it's time to do that. I haven't owned it since the 90's Manga Entertainment release on VHS.

 

[kunonabi]

My wife has been asking me to buy Macross Plus for about a year now -- sounds like it's time to do that. I haven't owned it since the 90's Manga Entertainment release on VHS.

I should have the DVD of the movie although I haven't actually seen it around in awhile so I may have to hunt and make sure. Your wife sounds like a keeper.

 

[Space Runaway]

Just got from back the Macross Plus theatrical screening. Movie is still bloody excellent.

I'll keep an eye out for NW then.

How was the audio where you saw it? The sound in the theater I went was all over the place. Sometimes the music was loud, other times it was really muted while the sound effects were super loud. Like the "Information High" sequence it sounded like they turned the music down while all the laser shots were super loud. Kinda killed the sequence. But then like Santi-u and stuff would sound fine. Odd. Subtitles were different from the old Manga video release too.

Went with a friend. They felt the movie was ahead of it's time for 94 but was otherwise a giant mess. Oh well. =P

 

[kunonabi]

During the glass breaking in one of the action sequences the sound cut out and the shatter sound would come out of a single channel. Seemed really awkward. Nothing else stood out but I'm not the biggest audio guy.

 

[Happosai]

Right now, I'm working through the Record of Lodoss War (the OVA) and now onto Chronicles of the Heroic Knight (about 3/4 through the sequel).

Now Space Runaway brought up giving it a chance as it's a classic anime that I'd never watched due to seeing a few episodes year ago -- and simply getting bored of it. I picked up the blu-ray set from Funimation which includes the OVA on blu-ray/series on DVD last Fall. My wife and I started watching the OVA (completed) midway through December. Just as Space Runaway told me early on; it would be expected to see a decline in animation and/or story with the spin-off.

What can I say positive about the OVA: Amazing animation, they had a budget (this was no cheapskate work), the story was amazing and very multi-layered, soundtrack with real instruments (seldom hear a synthesizer as the main instrumental voice) and brief enough to not over exhaust itself.

Let's talk about the sequel R.O.L.W.: The Chronicles of the Heroic Knight

I'm not going to give a full take as I'm not on the last episodes yet. Here's what I can say so far:

- Animation took a relatively big drop which is reflective of nearly all anime put out in the late-90's
- The story seems to be taking certain depths away from the OVA (Ashram, Wagnard, etc are somehow back??? What did I miss?) My understanding was if someone dies in an original; they don't just come back without explanation. The story acts like a sequel but the villians brought back were dead by the end of the OVA. Maybe someone has an answer to this.
- Soundtrack is synthesizers...no traditional instruments that I can hear unless they're recycling bits from the OVA
- No explanation on what happened to Woodchuck; Karla just randomly "takes another body"
- They made things too easy. This is fairly common I've seen as a difference from OVAs and TV series. I get they had to anticipate the effect of ratings by putting out Lodoss TV years after the OVA. But the villians are simplified, protagonists are rewarded too quickly with little effort, and the challenge doesn't feel that impactful. There was a darker tone to OVA for sure because it did captivate a bit more realism.
- The mutated theater whatever ending "specials" are unbearable. I think they did this with Blueseed too if I remember. I know someone has a whole reason as to why they did this in anime. It would seem they do this in Chronicles of the Heroic Knight to try to give the audience a break from the seriousness of the story. My wife watching this with me tried to hold through 2 of these and it just ended up getting skipped. Seems like the mutated theater story is more or less where the stories from many modern slice of life anime comes from.

Positives:
- The characters during the 2nd arc aren't terrible
- It's nice that they do have a certain break of humor and they're not treading entirely over the story of the OVA
- There's a different dynamic to the team with Spark vs. Parn arcs. Parn's arc is centered really on him and the other characters build out more of the surrounding story. Spark's arc seems to wrap around all characters -- making Spark seem much more dependent on a team; whereas Parn was independent of these things for the most part
- Intro is pretty cool. We get this was a different animation team but they did an amazing job.
- Seems they made it more of a general fantasy story than to try to expand into more of a D & D-like tale as was the OVA


About 8 episodes left so please don't throw any spoilers in but feel free to expand on this topic or bring to discussion anime sequels that were "okay."

 

[Space Runaway]

Right now, I'm working through the Record of Lodoss War (the OVA) and now onto Chronicles of the Heroic Knight (about 3/4 through the sequel).

Now Space Runaway brought up giving it a chance as it's a classic anime that I'd never watched due to seeing a few episodes year ago -- and simply getting bored of it. I picked up the blu-ray set from Funimation which includes the OVA on blu-ray/series on DVD last Fall. My wife and I started watching the OVA (completed) midway through December. Just as Space Runaway told me early on; it would be expected to see a decline in animation and/or story with the spin-off.

What can I say positive about the OVA: Amazing animation, they had a budget (this was no cheapskate work), the story was amazing and very multi-layered, soundtrack with real instruments (seldom hear a synthesizer as the main instrumental voice) and brief enough to not over exhaust itself.

Let's talk about the sequel R.O.L.W.: The Chronicles of the Heroic Knight

I'm not going to give a full take as I'm not on the last episodes yet. Here's what I can say so far:

- Animation took a relatively big drop which is reflective of nearly all anime put out in the late-90's
- The story seems to be taking certain depths away from the OVA (Ashram, Wagnard, etc are somehow back??? What did I miss?) My understanding was if someone dies in an original; they don't just come back without explanation. The story acts like a sequel but the villians brought back were dead by the end of the OVA. Maybe someone has an answer to this.
- Soundtrack is synthesizers...no traditional instruments that I can hear unless they're recycling bits from the OVA
- No explanation on what happened to Woodchuck; Karla just randomly "takes another body"
- They made things too easy. This is fairly common I've seen as a difference from OVAs and TV series. I get they had to anticipate the effect of ratings by putting out Lodoss TV years after the OVA. But the villians are simplified, protagonists are rewarded too quickly with little effort, and the challenge doesn't feel that impactful. There was a darker tone to OVA for sure because it did captivate a bit more realism.
- The mutated theater whatever ending "specials" are unbearable. I think they did this with Blueseed too if I remember. I know someone has a whole reason as to why they did this in anime. It would seem they do this in Chronicles of the Heroic Knight to try to give the audience a break from the seriousness of the story. My wife watching this with me tried to hold through 2 of these and it just ended up getting skipped. Seems like the mutated theater story is more or less where the stories from many modern slice of life anime comes from.

Positives:
- The characters during the 2nd arc aren't terrible
- It's nice that they do have a certain break of humor and they're not treading entirely over the story of the OVA
- There's a different dynamic to the team with Spark vs. Parn arcs. Parn's arc is centered really on him and the other characters build out more of the surrounding story. Spark's arc seems to wrap around all characters -- making Spark seem much more dependent on a team; whereas Parn was independent of these things for the most part
- Intro is pretty cool. We get this was a different animation team but they did an amazing job.
- Seems they made it more of a general fantasy story than to try to expand into more of a D & D-like tale as was the OVA


About 8 episodes left so please don't throw any spoilers in but feel free to expand on this topic or bring to discussion anime sequels that were "okay."

I believe the reason for the discrepancies is the OVA series made changes to the original novel's story to have a contained OVA series with a particular end point. When they finally made the TV series they ignored any changes made by the OVAs which led to continuity issues and dead characters mysteriously being alive again and whatnot. Nevertheless the OVAs remain more popular even if they're less accurate.

Once you're done with the TV series you can follow it with up Legend of Crystania. Nah don't do that, it's mega trash.

And for sequel series that were just "okay", Dirty Pair was talked about awhile back and I've felt the 87 OVA sequel series was a "just ok" followup. A lot of the episode plots aren't great, the action isn't really there and they dialed up the humour which led to Kei & Yuri getting some extra air-headed portrayals at times. Still enjoyable enough but not on the level of the tv series.

 

[Space Runaway]

And now back to business after break. =P

Anyone pick up the Project A-Ko bluray yet? Got my copy the other day and it looks wonderful. Haven't checked out most of the extras yet though they have a full animatic which is cool. Definitely a must buy for anyone interested.

Movie defaults to 16:9 but it's a crop job so make sure to set it to 4:3 unless you prefer a zoomed image

Anyway a bunch of random shots (I tried to avoid taking only mecha shots =P). Probably need to open them in a new tab to see at full resolution.

 

[kunonabi]

A-Ko looks great. I ordered it but my two huge hauls from rightstuf haven't shipped out yet. I imagine they're backlogged from their
vacation.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

I was reminded of Neo Tokyo yesterday. Doesn't look like there are any physical copies still in print. I haven't checked ebay yet. What's everyone's favorite short from that? I'm really partial to The Running Man. I love Kawajiri.

 

[Happosai]

I believe the reason for the discrepancies is the OVA series made changes to the original novel's story to have a contained OVA series with a particular end point. When they finally made the TV series they ignored any changes made by the OVAs which led to continuity issues and dead characters mysteriously being alive again and whatnot. Nevertheless the OVAs remain more popular even if they're less accurate.

Once you're done with the TV series you can follow it with up Legend of Crystania. Nah don't do that, it's mega trash.

And for sequel series that were just "okay", Dirty Pair was talked about awhile back and I've felt the 87 OVA sequel series was a "just ok" followup. A lot of the episode plots aren't great, the action isn't really there and they dialed up the humour which led to Kei & Yuri getting some extra air-headed portrayals at times. Still enjoyable enough but not on the level of the tv series.

I'm willing to work with the discrepancies as it's nearly over from what I can tell (I'm on the last disc and into the last 3 episodes). One thing that bothers me that they did to soften Lodoss for TV back in 98' was the change with Ashram and Wagnard. Ashram in the OVA is very callous, intelligent, emotionally indifferent and shows no respect of persons (aside from a hidden admiration for Piratess...if that's how her name is spelled). Ashram in the Chronicles of the Heroic Knight kindles his rage (postponing battles until..."the right time"), he's emotionally connected to his people and outwardly starts showing an affection toward Piratess. We never knew his goal for desiring to conquer Lodoss in the OVA but his intensity made him an excellent antagonist. Wagnard in the OVA is outright maniacal and shows no weakness toward using black magic or whatever means to have his sacrifice and destroy Lodoss. Martha is the only character that seems to stay somewhat consistent as she's never outright violent but has the bigger scheme of things and will manipulate the wars to bring a balance. Those are tiny details I've noticed in respect to those.
Before I forget, Wagnard wants to conquer/destroy Lodoss (in the sequel) for the purpose or what?! Get revenge on his old sorcery colleagues who cast him out for stealing the "bad spells." His whole plan and reasoning seems like little or no thought was put into that. It makes the character less threatening and leads an audience to believe he's pretty easy to dispose of.

Legend of Crystania is never going to happen. No way and I'm not sure where I saw a bit of it or where it was brought up before. I've never read anything good about it and I'll take popular opinion on that one. However, I'm also looking for an excuse to buy Angel Cop as I've never seen it. The one reason I've never purchased it is because I'm not sure how over-the-top they went into anti-Semitism. That's a sensitive topic to me even if it's in animation. I can't support anything which sympathizes that would pin Jewish as evil due to their political and capitalist history. I've never understood the resentment and I'm not sure why someone thought to put that into a story. They could have easily created a fictional religion or people to move in that direction. Not having seen Angel Cop but having read nearly every review on it stating this was a problem with it. That's why I've never owned it or watched it. How bad was it?

Agreed that Dirty Pair TV will always be better than the OVA. I've always felt in a way that the OVA is somewhat incomplete the same. Then again, although I own the OVA - I have not watched it in about 12-years. So, my last memory of it was that it was 'okay' but seemed also like they never fully completed any type of arc.

And now back to business after break. =P

Anyone pick up the Project A-Ko bluray yet? Got my copy the other day and it looks wonderful. Haven't checked out most of the extras yet though they have a full animatic which is cool. Definitely a must buy for anyone interested.

Movie defaults to 16:9 but it's a crop job so make sure to set it to 4:3 unless you prefer a zoomed image


Anyway a bunch of random shots (I tried to avoid taking only mecha shots =P). Probably need to open them in a new tab to see at full resolution.

It really does look nice from the images. I always look forward to seeing the scroll of photos you're able to get from these releases. Especially when that's in comparison to early releases like the CPM prints. Maybe I'm thinking of something else but was the A-Ko new release given a steel box release too? Anyone buying these new upscaled releases -- please share your comments and photos here. I would still hold onto the CPM release for the simple sake of having the soundtrack release on CD but the Blu-ray looks like a treasure! By the way, did anyone buy the Dear Brother Blu-ray release? I need an excuse to buy that.

A-Ko looks great. I ordered it but my two huge hauls from rightstuf haven't shipped out yet. I imagine they're backlogged from their
vacation.

Rightstuf tends to be pretty slow on shipping from what I remember when I was still in the U.S. Seems like 2-3 weeks but I know everything was slowed prior to New Year's. You'll get your haul soon and I'd like you to share something about that here.

I was reminded of Neo Tokyo yesterday. Doesn't look like there are any physical copies still in print. I haven't checked ebay yet. What's everyone's favorite short from that? I'm really partial to The Running Man. I love Kawajiri.

OmegaSupreme I put this in the Blu-ray poll in the OP (NeoTokyo). NeoTokyo is one of my favorite anime movies and unfortunately I sold my copy of it during a bulk trade-in to my gaming store back in 2011. That release I sold was the last print I'm aware of which was on behalf of ADV. Labyrinth Labyrinthos was a very interesting abstract piece which reminded me a bit of Cat Soup (the movie) based on that animation style. Running Man to me was one of the creepiest Kawajiri shorts I've ever seen and came out during his peak year of performance. Construction Cancellation Order...I'm going to say this which some may hate me for...it was better than Akira. Otomo and Morimoto shined better in this not just for the animation but for a much better story. Bottom line, from everything I can tell -- there is no announced release for Blu-ray but I feel that's eventual. J JunkerWoland tends to know a bit more about which anime have licenses open, expired, etc; may know something more.

 

[JunkerWoland]

Earlier in this thread, I posted the following about Neo Tokyo: "As for Neo Tokyo, it's another title that has not received a Blu-ray release in Japan, with its home-market DVD from 2003 also appearing to be out-of-print. Going by ADV's last release of it (2004) and a French DVD from 2008, looks like Kadokawa holds the home-media rights. Ultimately, the questions are: is the title even available to license, and what is the condition of the potential film materials?"

Worth adding, even if Kadokawa does technically hold the home media rights to Neo Tokyo, this doesn't inherently mean they have complete control over releasing & licensing the title. Other entities may need to provide their consent and get paid, potentially creating a logistical snarl that no one wants to bother clearing. Neo Tokyo not having a Japanese Blu-ray release is probably the most telling aspect of the situation, considering it's a title with both some industry significance and fan awareness.

Related to Right Stuf & shipping, keep in mind the company will now almost never ship partial orders, meaning all items in a order must be in-stock. I've already received an order from the company that was placed between the Christmas holiday and New Year's day, while I have a few outstanding purchases held-up by items that missed their expected street date.

 

[kunonabi]

Yeah my orders were waiting on the 28th and 31st of December to be ready but they just shipped today so it shouldn't be too long now. Considering the big discounts I don't mind the wait.

 

[Space Runaway]

I was reminded of Neo Tokyo yesterday. Doesn't look like there are any physical copies still in print. I haven't checked ebay yet. What's everyone's favorite short from that? I'm really partial to The Running Man. I love Kawajiri.

I'm not sure...I don't really have a favorite.. They're wonderful in their visuals with Labyrinth Labyrinthos have a lot of super stylized and abstract(ish) visuals you don't often get to see animated at that level and quality, Running Man has the cool noir tale with slick and visually striking racing and Construction Cancellation Order managing to be both funny and a mix of irritating+depressing.

Though Running Man I'll always remember due to seeing the Liquid Television version long before seeing it proper. =P

I hope to one day see an HD release. It would be gorgeous.

I'm willing to work with the discrepancies as it's nearly over from what I can tell (I'm on the last disc and into the last 3 episodes). One thing that bothers me that they did to soften Lodoss for TV back in 98' was the change with Ashram and Wagnard. Ashram in the OVA is very callous, intelligent, emotionally indifferent and shows no respect of persons (aside from a hidden admiration for Piratess...if that's how her name is spelled). Ashram in the Chronicles of the Heroic Knight kindles his rage (postponing battles until..."the right time"), he's emotionally connected to his people and outwardly starts showing an affection toward Piratess. We never knew his goal for desiring to conquer Lodoss in the OVA but his intensity made him an excellent antagonist. Wagnard in the OVA is outright maniacal and shows no weakness toward using black magic or whatever means to have his sacrifice and destroy Lodoss. Martha is the only character that seems to stay somewhat consistent as she's never outright violent but has the bigger scheme of things and will manipulate the wars to bring a balance. Those are tiny details I've noticed in respect to those.
Before I forget, Wagnard wants to conquer/destroy Lodoss (in the sequel) for the purpose or what?! Get revenge on his old sorcery colleagues who cast him out for stealing the "bad spells." His whole plan and reasoning seems like little or no thought was put into that. It makes the character less threatening and leads an audience to believe he's pretty easy to dispose of.

Yeah not having any familiarity with the source books I can't say too much on the changes. Considering the route they went they should have started from the beginning so one could view the OVAs and TV series entirely separately instead of their quasi continuation.

However, I'm also looking for an excuse to buy Angel Cop as I've never seen it. The one reason I've never purchased it is because I'm not sure how over-the-top they went into anti-Semitism. That's a sensitive topic to me even if it's in animation. I can't support anything which sympathizes that would pin Jewish as evil due to their political and capitalist history. I've never understood the resentment and I'm not sure why someone thought to put that into a story. They could have easily created a fictional religion or people to move in that direction. Not having seen Angel Cop but having read nearly every review on it stating this was a problem with it. That's why I've never owned it or watched it. How bad was it?

Manga removed all the antisemitic content from their dub and sub translations so you don't have to worry about any of that when watching it. From what I understand though it was basically the Japanese government sold out Japan to Jewish bankers who intend to convert it into a nuclear waste dump. Supposedly there's also some big diatribe about how they took over the US and are responsible for all the wars but I've never seen the original uncensored dialogue. Pretty ridiculous. The censored Manga release instead just pins everything on America. =P

Agreed that Dirty Pair TV will always be better than the OVA. I've always felt in a way that the OVA is somewhat incomplete the same. Then again, although I own the OVA - I have not watched it in about 12-years. So, my last memory of it was that it was 'okay' but seemed also like they never fully completed any type of arc.

I rewatched them kiiinda recently and they were watchable but definitely inferior. More than once I've heard the OVA series was partially created so they could tack it onto the TV series in order to have enough episodes for broadcast in Euro countries but I've never seen a true source on that. =P


As for Rightstuf shipping, I know the A-Ko bluray saw something of a last minute production delay which caused it to miss the original ship date. Possible other recent releases may have been impacted in that same way? The last couple years I've usually gotten RightStuf releases delivered before the release date a lot of the time so maybe I'm near one of their facilities or something. =P

 

[JunkerWoland]

Based on various posts by Justin Sevakis, Discotek's entire slate of December releases was hit by production delays, stemming from backups at the contracted disc replicator. The company seems to have (understandably) prioritized Project A-ko, which is why people started receiving copies last week. Going by my own orders and other posts I'm seeing online, looks the rest of the their December products have now hit retail channels, at least online stores.

 

[Happosai]

Yeah my orders were waiting on the 28th and 31st of December to be ready but they just shipped today so it shouldn't be too long now. Considering the big discounts I don't mind the wait.

I'm not sure...I don't really have a favorite.. They're wonderful in their visuals with Labyrinth Labyrinthos have a lot of super stylized and abstract(ish) visuals you don't often get to see animated at that level and quality, Running Man has the cool noir tale with slick and visually striking racing and Construction Cancellation Order managing to be both funny and a mix of irritating+depressing.

Though Running Man I'll always remember due to seeing the Liquid Television version long before seeing it proper. =P

I hope to one day see an HD release. It would be gorgeous.



Yeah not having any familiarity with the source books I can't say too much on the changes. Considering the route they went they should have started from the beginning so one could view the OVAs and TV series entirely separately instead of their quasi continuation.



Manga removed all the antisemitic content from their dub and sub translations so you don't have to worry about any of that when watching it. From what I understand though it was basically the Japanese government sold out Japan to Jewish bankers who intend to convert it into a nuclear waste dump. Supposedly there's also some big diatribe about how they took over the US and are responsible for all the wars but I've never seen the original uncensored dialogue. Pretty ridiculous. The censored Manga release instead just pins everything on America. =P



I rewatched them kiiinda recently and they were watchable but definitely inferior. More than once I've heard the OVA series was partially created so they could tack it onto the TV series in order to have enough episodes for broadcast in Euro countries but I've never seen a true source on that. =P


As for Rightstuf shipping, I know the A-Ko bluray saw something of a last minute production delay which caused it to miss the original ship date. Possible other recent releases may have been impacted in that same way? The last couple years I've usually gotten RightStuf releases delivered before the release date a lot of the time so maybe I'm near one of their facilities or something. =P

Running Man was shown on Liguid Television? That's something else I did not know. It fits with the abstract or extreme cartoons which made their run on Liquid. I'm also thinking (although I've never read this) that Aeon Flux' creator was possibly inspired by the works Yoshiaki Kawajiri somewhat in style. I don't want to go too far down that topic as it may go off topic from the OP.

Regarding Angel Cop...no. I'm not into censored anime and I get that would make it seem less offensive but what I wanted to know - you pretty much already told me. I get they're fictional stories but that's a subject no one should have put into animation. The idea that Jewish bankers/politicians took over the U.S. and Japan sold out to...makes me start to question to beliefs of the writers. That idealology is completely twisted. I would have considered it if they had some conspiracy in the story that stated Jews are completely separate today from those prior to the 1st century. But this was not about their beliefs but rather their heritage. I'll pass on that --- glad I found out here before picking the Blu-ray.

I get that things are backed up with Rightstuf or Discotek on new releases. What I do is wait for their releases to sit out for the first 6-months - 1st year and then buy from Amazon. I'm careful checking buyers that it's not coming from Rightstuf. I get why someone would use RightStuf within the U.S. as did I. I mean, there are often discounts, offers and combine order discounts going on which you're not going to get with Amazon. Shipping isn't crazy in price but I recall it always being a bit slower. I actually liked getting their orders delayed in the U.S. because I'd sometimes forget what I ordered after 2-weeks (I was buying a lot back in the day) and I'd open the mailbox one day and there's my package. So, I liked that surprise delay as an out of the blue package on a somewhat average day. But, I'll say it one more time --- never use RightStuf if you're international (which I am now). It's so irresponsible that they don't pay the most basic custom fee (a one time charge which Amazon pays when you buy at checkout) and throw that onto the buyer. It forces you to have to dish out cash (the carriers for whatever reason never carry card readers for debit/credit) and the charges tend to be more than what the shipping price was. As a matter of fact, I ordered...should I say this...Shamanic Princess (I ordered in 2009 and never watched it before selling the same year) in December. The seller was a private 3rd party seller. I didn't give him international shipping instructions BUT he saw the charge when shipping out with DHL and billed me for it prior to shipping. I ended up getting the DVD prior to Christmas with no issues. If an individual 3rd-party seller can get it right but a larger supplier like RightStuf can't; they'll never have business with me. $30 extra dollar charge in cash at the door for K.O.R. TV in 2020 after I'd already paid the import tax, shipping and set which totaled over $100 with that.

Talking about OVA vs. TV as Dirty Pair is one example. Series even with a less budget per episode (which is almost always the case) was indeed better. However, this might piss some off to hear but...I liked the 'New Cutey Honey OVA' better than the original TV series from over a decade before. I feel most Go Nagai series' can be covered in an OVA and their stretches into TV just seemed to get a bit boring for me. The only exception I'd say in which they needed a series was with the first Mazinger franchise. Then again, I have somewhat of a bias as I've always preferred OVAs more than a series. I appreciate someone who can get their point across in a one to 12 episodes rather than dragging things out until they become of little interest. I feel if I want the full story; I'll buy the manga. I enjoyed the Ranma 1/2 TV series, even though they had to write away from Rumiko after the 2nd volume mostly. However, as mentioned last year when I went through with watching the full 5 seasons of the original Dragon Ball; it was good up until about season 3. After that, it just got worse and worse. I know you all have more takes on this and feel free to share.

Edit: TL;DR