What Are You Watching?

[LumRanmaYasha]

You're right that I was incorrect in describing that Fumoffu was just Sosuke reacting to things. Though I meant nothing mean-spirited or harmful by it, it was indeed a much too over-simplified statement that doesn't describe or give it proper justice at all, and I can see how it came off dismissive towards the series, which wasn't my intention at all. I apologize for that. The intention of my post was not to critique or dismiss Fumoffu by comparing it to other series or make any assumptions about you but was rather me trying to explain one aspect that might've contributed to me not getting as much out of the series as I expected to going into it. As usual I seem to have got carried away and ended up making generalizations about the series as as whole, which wasn't what I was trying to do and should've noticed and rewrote before posting. I also did not mean to insinuate I thought of it as a character-focused comedy, since it is a situation-focused comedy as you said. When I said it was "my kind of series," I meant it in terms of how often simple situations end up going to extremes and often chaos, which is an element that is frequent in many of my personal favorite anime comedies, as is slapstick and absurd situations where the characters dig themselves deeper and deeper into a mess. There were plenty of elements in Fumoffu that did appeal to me, but I just didn't click with many of the episodes for whatever reason. I should've just left it at that, rather than making an ass of myself unintentionally by inadvertently describing it as something it as not and over-explaining a simple idea.

But, at the risk of making another inflammatory remark, I cannot agree with you at all that the School Rumble characters never evolved out of their archetypes. Much like the stance you just took with me and Fumoffu, I respect that you didn't care for the series, but that's just not true. They did.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Fair enough. I don't really wish to debate the issue either way. We seem to share similar opinions on most things, but clearly anime comedies isn't one of them, and there's nothing particularly wrong with that.

As for School Rumble, I was probably being a bit too harsh in my criticisms. It was more of me going overboard in my criticism just because I felt that you were doing the same with Fumoffu, but really that was pretty immature of me, so sorry about that. I should also probably stress that I don't find SR to actually be bad in any regard, just not really my cup of tea. I can at least understand the appeal of that show, though, unlike some other popular comedies that just never made any sense to me, personally.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Also, on the subject of FMP, regardless of your stance on the first season and the side-stories in Fumoffu, if you did indeed enjoy TSR, then I'd definitely recommend reading the later novels or manga. In the case of the manga, the rest of the story has been pretty faithfully adapted in Sigma, but if you can, I'd recommend the books over the manga since with novels you get more insight into what is going through the characters' heads, which I feel personally makes them more interesting and nuanced (especially Sousuke, who IMO is actually a more interesting character in the novels because of his thought process, which is smething that the anime just couldn't possibly portray).

The light novels past the point where Tokyopop stopped their translations have all been fully translated and released online since 2010, and they should be pretty easy to find and download in .zip, which is how I read them. The translations are also surprisingly professional in quality for something that was fan translated.

Anyways, it's worth checking out if you're in the mood and have the time.

[Lord Dalek]

Saint Seiya is the most underrated Shonen Jump of all time.


...there I said it.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Also, on the subject of FMP, regardless of your stance on the first season and the side-stories in Fumoffu, if you did indeed enjoy TSR, then I'd definitely recommend reading the later novels or manga. In the case of the manga, the rest of the story has been pretty faithfully adapted in Sigma, but if you can, I'd recommend the books over the manga since with novels you get more insight into what is going through the characters' heads, which I feel personally makes them more interesting and nuanced (especially Sousuke, who IMO is actually a more interesting character in the novels because of his thought process, which is smething that the anime just couldn't possibly portray).

The light novels past the point where Tokyopop stopped their translations have all been fully translated and released online since 2010, and they should be pretty easy to find and download in .zip, which is how I read them. The translations are also surprisingly professional in quality for something that was fan translated.

Anyways, it's worth checking out if you're in the mood and have the time.

I plan to. I have all of them downloaded and started reading "Dancing Very Merry Christmas" earlier today. I'll read Sigma after I'm done with the novels. 

Saint Seiya is the most underrated Shonen Jump of all time.


...there I said it.

As far as in the U.S. goes, you mean. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Cool. Dancing Very Merry Christmas is decent and contains a huge spoilery plot point that will become a big deal later on, but the next 2 novels, Continuing On My Own and Burning One Man Force, are among my favorites.

[gunswordfist]

a few days ago, i read that saint seiya flopped and was even canceled in japan way back then. i assumed it was a huge hit back. on the same day i also read that lupin's 1st series flopped and got canceled, akira got overlooked in japan and castle of cagliostro got panned when it came. i had no clue about any of this.

[Il Juude]

About a week ago I finished Akame ga Kill. I was initially expecting a bit more from it in terms of characterization, plot, and world building, but ultimately it becomes a rather well done shonen that doesn't really waste your time in terms of giving you top-flight battles and not pulling its punches on people dying from them. That ending though? Sheesh. I liked it but... sheesh.

I've also picked up Sabagebu again after months since i watched an episode (left off at episode 4), still very fun and irreverent. Enjoy it lots.

[LumRanmaYasha]

First trailer for the upcoming Ghost in the Shell movie.

It's being done by the same team that did Arise, which I still haven't watched yet, but have heard solid things about. Hopefully this film will be as good.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I put it off for over a year, but today I finally finished the first Hajime no Ippo anime. I ended up switching to the dub when I resumed watching it last week, which helped me get through it quicker and be able to watch it in larger doses. Overall the series was solid through and through. I'm going to put off watching the other seasons for now to finish other stuff, but I'll get to them eventually.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Personally I prefer the dub. It's well done and it makes it much easier to watch the show in large doses.

Admittedly, reading AnJ really spoiled me when it comes to high quality sports manga/anime, but I still feel that for what it is, HnI is really entertaining and does its craft well. It sticks to being an entertaining Boxing series focused on quirky characters and interesting fights, and never devolves into KnB levels of ridiculous power-ups, nor does it get jumbled up with too many characters at once like AoD. It aims lower than something like AnJ or Slam Dunk, but succeeds way better at executing what it sets out to do than most other sports series that do try to be as high quality as those kinds of series and just fail miserably at it, IMO.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I felt that some performances in the dub were not as strong as in the original, particularly Ippo and Miyata, but overall it's a solid work. I realized a while ago that I have a hard time watching subbed anime in large chunks, and I lose interest and put off most subbed series that I start for long periods of time if I don't finish them within a few days or watch them on a regularly scheduled basis (Urusei Yatsura was the only exception to this that I can think of). If I had started watching HnI dubbed in the first place I have a feeling I would have finished it over a year ago like I originally planned.

In any case, I thought the HnI anime was solid all the way and I there's little I didn't like in it. It's probably my third favorite sports series at this point. I do feel that reading and watching AnJ probably lessened the impact of the series on me, and I might have enjoyed it on a level higher if I didn't experience the entirety of that series first. Obviously I still enjoyed it a lot, though. Of course, I have my concerns about the remainder of the series considering what you've complained about it after this point before, but at least it doesn't drop to KnB levels of suck from what I can tell either. It'll still be a long time before I get caught up, at any rate, but at least finishing the first anime is finally some good progress on that front.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The first anime basically covers the best part of the manga, anyways, IMO. New Challenger is decent, but the only major highlight is the Bryan Hawk fight, IMO. Rising is a really lazy adaptation, despite adapting the really good fight with Sawamura,  as well as the WWII flashback arc.

As for the dub, I think that the only performance that I didn't care for was Miyata. The rest were pretty spot-on, IMO.

[LumRanmaYasha]

It seems Crunchyroll might add Zatch Bell! to it's catalog. It would be neat if that happens. While I'm not big on the anime version much anymore, as a longtime fan of the series and Makoto Raiku in general I would be happy to see it get legal streaming all the same. Though, I'd hope they add subs, since there are only 103 episodes that were dubbed in english and the boxset didn't include a english sub option, and the episodes that weren't subbed never got released legally in any form in the U.S. before. It would be nice to see, especially it they did it in time for the 10th anniversary it hit the U.S. airwaves (aka sometime in March).

[LumRanmaYasha]

So it seems they are only uploading the dubbed episodes. Aw. Still, it's enough to whet my nostalgia if I'm ever in the mood.