Edit: On another note, given that HappinessCharge PreCure! will (presumably) still be airing by the time the new Sailor Moon series starts, they must be targeting a different audience.
I wouldn't put as much stock in that given that they've clearly pulled out all the stops for HapCha this time. It's shaping up to be the best Precure series yet, and they clearly don't want the show to lose out to Sailor Moon as an also-ran.
All the same, it's entirely true that Toei probably isn't interested in shows cannibalizing each other.
Edit: On another note, given that HappinessCharge PreCure! will (presumably) still be airing by the time the new Sailor Moon series starts, they must be targeting a different audience.
Why can't they target the same audience? Toei also does Super Sentai and Kamen Rider, those shows share the exact same target audience and run back to back, so why wouldn't they do two magical girl shows?
Why can't they target the same audience? Toei also does Super Sentai and Kamen Rider, those shows share the exact same target audience and run back to back, so why wouldn't they do two magical girl shows?
I did not know that, though I was under the impression that Kamen Rider targets a somewhat older audience. The new Sailor Moon could do the same and not target an entirely different audience.
Sailor Moon has a built in adult audience and especially internationally Toei won't reach many kids (how many use streaming services to watch a japanese show subbed?) so I'm pretty sure the older fans are important to Toei, I was just saying that they don't have to target an older audience just because they already have a similar show for young girls.
But even with Toei thinking about older fans, the new Sailor Moon won't be an "adult" series, it will be appropriate for children (at least japanese children). And I still want MOTDs, I'm not sure why you seemed to be so shocked, it allows the senshi to fight and defeat villains without killing off the main villains right after they appear (effectively making them MOTDs).
The thing is, I like the story of the manga (although I'm not a fan of the lack of characterization) but I also like the episodic structure of the anime (although most arcs went on too long), I want the new anime to be both if that's possible.
I think standalone episodes have a greater rewatch value than episodes that are part of a serialized arc, so I don't want to lose them completely.
Region A/1: North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia
Region B/2: Europe, Greenland, French territories, Middle East, Africa, Australia and New Zealand
Region C/3: India, Nepal, Mainland China, Russia, Central and South Asia
It's not an either-or situation here. The new anime has the luxury of adapting a completed story, so as close or as loose as it wants to follow the source material it can pace itself according to its own needs.
Amazon region code listings aren't always accurate. They often just list the "main" or native region for a disc without mention of if it's multiregion or region free (for example, FUNImation's Dragon Boxes were just listed as region 1 on Amazon but are actually 1+4).
amazon is often wrong about that, sometimes even the backcovers are wrong, they state a specific region but the discs themselves are region free, that's why I'm asking.
www.blu-ray.com is reliable but the disc hasn't been tested yet for playback in regions B and C.
The japanese BDs are region free but they're not subbed, I haven't seen Ranma often enough to be able to follow the story without a translation, so that's not an option for me.
Can you access Hulu where you live? They have Ranma 1/2 on there. Hulu has commercial breaks which is really annoying, but at least you're legally watching it for free.
And to be fair, it's really not that great until after 20 something episodes when the ED changes and it switches to regular half-hour episodes. It's worth it, though. Afterward the writing dramatically improves and the art gradually improves over the course of the show.
I'm heading out all day to Miami in a bit, so I'll try and watch it tomorrow if I can.
I always meant to watch more of it. I think I only watched the first two or three episodes, maybe? I'm not sure. It's been a few years, but I think I rewatched the first episode a year or two ago.
I haven't seen Urusei Yatsura; part of the reason why I'm buying at least the first Ranma 1/2 Bluray to support it and hope it lets her other works come to America.
I just finished Ojamajo Doremi, so I may start a Sailor Moon rewatch soon in preparation for the new series (hard to believe it's almost been 2 and a half years since I started watching the first time). Also may watch that Urusei Yatsura show, and Maison Ikkoku since Hitokage says it's really good.
I just finished Ojamajo Doremi, so I may start a Sailor Moon rewatch soon in preparation for the new series (hard to believe it's almost been 2 and a half years since I started watching the first time). Also may watch that Urusei Yatsura show, and Maison Ikkoku since Hitokage says it's really good.
Since we are going off anime recommendation has anyone seen Evangelion? I always wanted to get into it but everytime I try to look into ther's like a bunch of different versions and it just flies over my head.
Only Tenchi I saw was the one that came on Toonami all those years ago....which I think was Universe? Speaking of Toonami, that thread got SM-GIF spammed last night. >.>
Evangelion is a great but flawed show. It even has a character named "Rei" in an unsuccessful attempt by Anno to lure Ikuhara into working on the show. Personally I can't hate it because it's my eternal fix for status displays.
As for why I recommend Pretty Sammy, while the OVA is still somewhat attached to the material it's a spinoff of, the TV is allowed to do its own thing and that thing is be an even more self-aware Sailor Moon.
While I'm in a mood for pimping stuff I'm watching, I'd just like to discuss Magical Girl Pretty Sammy for a few paragraphs. Wait, wait, don't run yet! I promise that there's actual merit to this endorsement.
Thanks to some helpful prodding from Hito I recently began going through the Tenchi Muyo franchise because it's essentially the bridge between Urusei Yatsura and the harem genre that Tenchi Muyo spawned through its adaptation of the Ataru-Shinobu-Lum love triangle that defined early UY. At the very least, the first and second Tenchi Muyo: Ryo-Ohki OVA series are pretty solid works that skillfully blend and balance science-fiction, comedy, drama, and romance to create a product that, for its time, was actually pretty novel. It's clear why TM: Ryo-Ohki was so instrumental in shaping the tastes of both Japanese and early American anime fans.
Anyway, probably to ride the wave of Sailor Moon's enormous popularity among otaku, Pioneer released a magical girl parody spinoff OVA Magical Girl Pretty Sammy in 1995. It was apparently popular enough that an entire 26-episode series based on the concept was greenlit and debuted the next year. It essentially repurposed a few characters from the Ryo-Ohki OVAs as mildly-different versions of themselves in an alternate reality where Sasami, who in the OVAs is the little sister of core triangle member Aeka and largely relegated to the outer fringes of both the serious narrative and the harem stuff, becomes protagonist and is dropped into a typical magical girl scenario. Sounds like a sleazy, cynical cash-in, but let me try to explain why it's actually really good.
Most importantly, it's not the "bad" kind of magical girl parody. It's not lascivious in its presentation--several magical girl parodies are just lolicon garbage clothed in a scattering of genre tropes or otherwise think that the only way to subvert magical girl tropes is to defile what is normally innocent. I hesitate even to call Pretty Sammy a parody because there's an association of mockery there, and while it is certainly a satirical take on the genre, it also manages to be genuine at the same time. It plays with the expectations of those who are familiar with the genre while still operating in the typical genre framework, and in terms of comedy, it's very much an antics show in the legacy of Sailor Moon. I don't make the comparison lightly--Sammy is genuinely fun in the same "stick to the formula but mess around as much as you possibly can within the formula" way that SM is.
The big difference from Usagi is that Sasami is perpetually exasperated, fully aware of just how ridiculous her circumstances are and yet powerless to resist fulfilling her duty. This is only half of the dynamic that shapes the comedy, though--the other part of the equation is the incredibly entertaining rivalry between Sasami and her perfect foil, the evil magical girl Pixy Misa, who appears every episode to usher in the Monster of the Week fight. Pixy Misa is undoubtedly the single best thing about the show--brash, egotistical, loud, uninhibited, and gleefully antagonistic, she absolutely overflows with charisma, thanks in part to a singularly unique and spirited performance from tragically-underused Kasahara Rumi (who recently resurfaced out of nowhere as Ain in One Piece: Film Z of all things.) Pixy Misa's banter with Sasami is always hugely entertaining and full of subversive commentary on magical girl tropes, all amplified by the central conceit that
Sasami and Misao (Pixy Misa's civilian identity) are best friends in real life, yet unknown to each other are enemies in battle.
Pixy Misa also receives the lion's share of the quality characterization, given that
Misao and Misa are polar opposites in personality. In each episode, Misao is hypnotized and forced to transform by the real antagonists. The transformation has the effect of embodying Misao's true self when uninhibited by her painful shyness and rigid, isolated upper-class upbringing, both of which are explored over the course of the series and contribute to how her relationship with the much more extroverted Sasami evolves. Probability of Misao having to come to grips with her "true self" at some point in the series? Take a guess.
Pretty Sammy actually does devote a decent amount of time to more serious dramatic fare, which is well-integrated, personal, and always feels earned (another Sailor Moon commonality!)
It's also worth mentioning that there's a decent-sized supporting cast that's also really well-utilized, so as great as Misa is, it's not totally her show. There are Sasami's parents (but especially her father, who is an unhinged super-badass Gary Stu performed amazingly by Kazuki Yao), Sasami's classmates including the Helga Pataki-esque Konoha and discipline-obsessed Eimi, bumbling, covetous, short-fused antagonist Rumia and her beleaguered, skeptical, reluctantly-complicit little brother Rumiya, Tsunami (who thrusts Sasami's mission upon her and skewers the "benevolent other-dimensional monarch" character a decade before Precure had a chance to run it into the ground), and idiot-savant Mihoshi, the dissatisfied and serious Kiyone, and eccentric mad scientist Washu, who all basically reprise their roles from Tenchi Muyo.
I hate that I really can't go more into the specifics of the humor with examples of what the "good" stuff is, but dissecting jokes is a tedious exercise that only serves to permanently ruin what it's explaining in the process. Basically, I highly recommend the series to anyone who likes the genre, but especially anyone out there like me who has had difficulty filling the Sailor Moon-shaped hole in their heart after finishing it. It's easily the most SM-like magical girl series I've seen, in all the best ways. You do lose something if you're not familiar with the Tenchiverse given that the part of what makes the premise fun is seeing how Tenchi lore surrounding the Juraihelm succession is twisted into a magical girl premise, and, furthermore, several characters make minor appearances as totally unrelated characters in the Pretty Sammy alternate universe, but it's still fine as a standalone work. Watch it!
oh I guess it was also called Magical Project S in America or something.
Since we are going off anime recommendation has anyone seen Evangelion? I always wanted to get into it but everytime I try to look into ther's like a bunch of different versions and it just flies over my head.
I've seen it years ago, I liked it, at the start you think it's a typical giant robo anime, then it becomes something completely different, the final two episodes are a mindfuck, it took me some time to understand what was going on. After the series there's a movie called "End of Evangelion", the series end takes place in the main characters head, the movie shows what's going on in the real world, I think they compliment each other, don't listen to people telling you to skip episodes 25 and 26.
There's another movie called "Death & Rebirth", I've never seen it, apparently it's just a recap of the tv series and then the first half of End of Evangelion.
There's also a new movie series, 3 of 4 have been released, the first one is a remake of the first few episodes of the series, then it goes in a different direction.
Hmm so the Movies and TV Shows are different tellings of the same story like how PGSM is? Which one should I check first? I looked for DVD/Blurays, looks like the movies are in print but not the show.
