Apologies there for a cloying smilie, but I'm getting into the swing of using them to lighten the tone of my posts!

Anywho, I've felt the same through bits of Last Exile; it started brilliantly, and appealed to my love of Skies of Arcadia!

However, it settled into lots of secondary character developments that seemed possibly unneccsary, or at least should have played alongside massive plot machinations regarding The Guild.

However, lately, it's been picking up and really been exciting (with plot related to 'Exile')

I recommend Chobits If your wanting to get into manga. I know many blokes that read it and love it. And its only 7 (or is it 8?) volumes long

Azumanga daioh manga is better than the anime (and only 4 books!)

It's a bloody massive new world!

There's series upon series galore, in multitudinous styles and tone. How's a gi- boy to choose?!

Even for Superman, there's so many to choose from. I think I've pinned myself down to a liker of all things "dark" and serialised graphic novel jobbies!

And while for some reason I still don't relish the thought of reading Spider-man et al his Marvel chums I'm liking the Frank Miller Daredevil comic series I've been lent.

Finished Full Metal Alchemist last night. It was good. Very good. A conclusion of sorts, but leaves it nice and open. On a par with Trigun easily.

Samurai Champloo next week then I'll have to go out and get some new stuff.

WiseJoeyD- I too started out reading Marvel (x-men specifically) and soon found that manga far surpasses and American offering in all departments. Welcome to our world.

I just got volumes three and four of the Chobits manga. And three and four of Love Hina as well. Never occured to me to get the anime though - is it any good?

Finally!

Watched the first ep of Bleach and I loved it; it didn't answer all my questions on it's concept but the humour and verve was great.

I loved her running commentary on how powerful the new Death God was:

"never seen one that big!"


The Man Without Fear was the name of the serial I read. I liked it, I thought it was good.
Sorry for going a bit Daisy there!

WiseJoeyD - I don't know if anyone has recommended it yet, but I would have a look at some Miyazaki as well if you can. Beautifully animated and with lovely moral stories. I would start with Spirited Away, and then go from there - Princess Mononke, Nausicaa and Kiki's Delivery Service are favourites of mine.

I'm already smitten by the name of the last one!

Okay, cloying plaitives aside I'll have a look. I loved Spirited Away; wonderfully dreamlike quality to proceedings.
The submerged train rails and semblance of this society of ghosts using it was a marvellous moment

That is my absolute favourite bit. My friend has a train track at the end of his back garden and you can just see from the windows upwards. Always reminds me of Spirited Away for some reason.

Must watch that again tonight now!

Kiki's Delivery Service is just the gentlest, lovliest film ever. Not as big on the whole "moral of the story" as the other Ghibi stuff tends to be, but it a great Sunday afternoon watch.

What about My Neighbour Totoro!?!?!
If you havent seen it you must, not available in the uk atm but still brilliant (most non violent movie ever, even les violent than carebears!)
Kiki is one of my favorites.

I have Totoro on my shelf at the moment. I just haven't got around to watching it yet. Might have to do that this weekend. It sounds just right for a relaxy Sunday watch.

I really need to get the Studio Ghibli box set. Havent got totoro but I love it. Still need to see pocco rosso and the one with the tanuke racoons in as well as grave of the fireflies. Love laputa and Nassica

There's a boxset?????

Got the first 60 episodes of Bleach sitting at home. Got to wait for the weekend to watch them with my mate though. The first episode kicked ass. Clean modern animation, interesting characters, cool demon things and a kickass theme song. Its looking good.

Seen any of thse cheap discount book stors that only last about 2 months in town? get to them, got 2 boxes of anime dvds their cheap and its quite a barging to buguin a colection. Had a few alreadyin them but its worth the money.

Been watching Habine reimai which ive wanted to look at for a while. really interesting, about people 'reborn' from a cocoon as hibane (people with small wongs) in a town they must never leave. Might get the series.

Think ill get Fruits baskets next on dvd

That one where girls turn into boys if they touch water was on the telly last night. Very strange.

That just put some ghastly potential situations in my head!

That would be Ranma 1/2 the everyday tale of a teenage martial arts expert who moves to a new town with his father. Only after an accident at the "Cursed Springs Training Ground" he gets turned into a girl every time he gets splashed with cold water and back when splashed with hot water. His father also turns into a Panda for the same reasons and his arch-nemesis into a small cute pig. Fantastically ridiculous, great fun and mad as a bagfull of weasels.

Just finished rewatching the new Appleseed movie, which is about 100,000,000 times better than the old one.

Oh and have you heard about Studio Ghiblis new project, due out next year, directed by Hayao Miyazakis son? Tales of EarthSea. Should be good.

i used to have all the guyver seriers on video which was pretty cool

this page has renewed my intrest in manga and anime

They really need to put Guyver on DVD. Saw some of it when I was about 10. First anime I ever saw. Ultra violent goodness. The live action movie sucks balls though.
Bleach tonight! Cant wait.

they have been released in the us on region one i thnikng of getting at the end of the month

you can get it here

http://www.store4dvd.com/index.php?action=...8&aff_id=376645

Elven Lied; don't watch before any other anime since you'll then expect people to explode in rovlets of blood and organs!

Watched up to episode 10 of Bleach. Shaping up to be amazing. Loads of little plot threads going on. Concepts behind the bad guys and their abilities are interesting. Much kick ass action. Only problem I have is that the copies I've got have subs that dissapear as soon as whoever is talking finishes. This means that you have to read incredibly fast at times, no small thing when your stoned out of your brain.

Just finished Paranoia Agent. I'm now confused and not a little scared. Just restarted Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Mmmmmmmmmmmexplosionsandcomplexplots.

I love this.

I got the boxset at christmas, my only gripe is the dubbed version is ... wrong. After watching it subbed in the past so much the voices aren't quite right, and sometimes the dubbing seems to make it a bit, rubbish. I don't know. Especially Batou.

However it does have the original soundtrack with subtitles so I'll just stick with that I think.

Even though i already have the 7 disk boxset, I'm soooooooooooooo tempted to scurry off to Play.com and buy their exclusive tinned 14 disk boxset. I'm weak like that.

eh? I never saw that. How much? I will go and have a look now.

It's a somewhat pocket crippling £79.99. Down from an even more pocket-crippling £99.99.

But it's so SHINY!!

congrats; you've now got another 53 eps to go!!!

I made it though, in marathon sessions, in 3 days and it is a great show, but anything in that quantity makes you want to drown things

It also opens your eyes tothe way a lot of anime is told; young boy, powers up, gets set back, then attains godlike uber-powers. On that alone I'd say the Matrix was the closest you could get to a live action anime piece.



Paranoia Agent: Jubei or Nitefall - watcing disc 3 and it's a bit weird. It ended on a such a brilliant note at the end of disc 2 I almost thought I'd bought an out of order disc! I've ploughed through it though; getting more than a little sick of the women' stories (but cheered up when they had inventive ways of showing Lil' Slugger).

I'm hoping it's got nothing to do with that cute little toy thing....

Hmm, 50 pounds for a shiny metal box that won't fit in with all the other DVD cases... seems a touch extravagant

When does it come to the uk?

Been looking forward too it. Was started to be shown at the one of the uni's anime society nights but ive only seen the first episode. It rocks!

Funny at the start when random cute&clumsy woman stumbles infront of the Thing and is unexpectadly torn apart. Well... to sick puppies!

Plus the other 7 disks that aren't in the £30 boxset!

ha, oh yeah, i totally blanked the 14 disc part, even though i read it loads of times. Work hey?

Going to take me a while longer than that. Watching some every weekend round at a mates house.

Yup, a lot of action anime is based around that story, but then when you think about it so are a great many films. Theres a formula to writing films/stories and by and large people stick to it.

Live action anime- watch cashern. Super stylish with stunning visiuals and fairly decent plot.

Thanks for the suggestion.


FINISHED PARANOIA AGENT!

It went a bit Ringu at the end but it was brilliant; the ep where the 3 chatrooms buddies try and commit suicide was amazing. Well, not in some crazy way, just really realy against type.

Heh heh heh I loved that bit

I'm told there's slightly fucked up incest later on in the show...

It *is* spelled Elfen Lied? Just wondering why there was no entry on wikipedia for it; though, if I wanted to, I'd make a new one and it'd contain:

"One fucked up puppy of a show"

Its lied but pronounced 'leed' in the trailer.

My male mate whos only seen clips and images of the show used in anime music videos still doesnt know why I like it cause there is quite a bit of nudity. I really dont care about that unless its graphic hentai which im not a fan of lol

I'm watching Rahxephon and being thoroughly confused;

Only if I go back and rewatch a disc, a bit like those little previews on PAranoia Agent, can I undestand what's just happened!

I'm not dumb or anything it's just.... what the hell is the big titted, pink haired girl on about when she sees Ayato fighting a Dolem?!?!

[Feel proud that you, me and 38 other people in the UK understand that last sentence!]

Up to episode 18 on Bleach now. Its all gone a little bit mental now. Seeing Chad kick some ass was cool. The ending music has changed now which is a relief, twas shite-
"nobody knows who I really am..."
Love the Japanese rap on the intro.

I LOVED that "what-the-fuck-a-ballad?!" song at the end. Hilarious and cheers me up after 21 mins of Death God adventures!

Only ep 21?! Um.... is that when they all head off to Soul society to rescuse the girl?

The next 40 eps basically play out as 24 but in anime form... it's constant-sorta-real-time goodness

Watched Paranoia Agent for the first time this weekend. As good and freaky as I expeced.

I want that Evil doggy Plushie!

Watch it all the way through? It turned a bit The Ring at the end didn't it?!

DId you ever go back after an ep and see if you could now understand what the freaky old man was saying? Cos, it sort of made sense...!

...Must fight the urge to argue...
Whatever you like man. I reckon it doesn't suit the action but I guess it different strokes again.

Could I have brief discription of what goes on in Paranoia Agent please? Need to get something lined up ready for when I finish Bleach.

Don't get me wrong, it's a fcking random syrupy song and all but after hearing what sounded like Avril Lavigne sing us out of Hellsing (or was it Elfen Lied?! That'd be even more disturbing) I've grown to enormously enjoy mismatched Anime closing themes!

Paranoia Agent.... um.. I'm shit at summarising it - too.. many.... bits...

"It's about how icons and stuff can, er, tie our society together..man.... and make us... paranoid, dude."

It felt like an episode of The X-Files mixed with what I can only presume Twin Peaks or something simiarly supernaturally felt like (never saw it).

I like Mononoke but Nausica is the original Miyazaki enviromentalist anime and in my opinion much better. Love the song. lala la lalalalala lala la lalala.
Fans of Ghost in the shell shoud check out Jinroh also by Oiishi Mamoru. I'm not sure if an English subtitled version is available but it's a pretty good adaptation of little red riding hood and well worth seeing. Also Miyazaki fans should check out The Castle of Cagliostro as agreat introduction to my personal favourite manga star Lupin 3rd !!

Lupin 3rd castle of Cagliostro

Tanomuze!!!!!!!!

I'll be honest, i've never been a fan of anime. I remember watching akira when i was 15 and being completely blown away by it. On the downside, I really did not have a clue what was going on in the slightest. I watched it a couple more times soon after but still i couldn't get to grips with it. So I only casually watched a couple of anime films since. Fist of the North Star being one and Legend of the Overfiend being the other. Again, I've no idea what the hell was going on. Legend of the Overfiend was just plain nuts. I remember the hero (or was he the villain) accidently cumming on his girlfriend's face, then the villain (or was he the hero) suddenly appearing, capturing her, licking the cum off her face and saying "Ha! I've got your sperm! Now I have the power!" Cue big fight.

So far over my head, it left the planet.

When Japanese Anime is good it's awsome but it's a massive industry in Japan. The bulk of anime is read by kids and Otaku's (nerds with perverted tendancies). So the bulk of it's ranges from cute wacked out nonsense to unerving macho cartoon porn. Allot of it gets on my tits. I have to live with pictures of fist of the north star selling razors everywhere I go. I try to avoid manga shops in Japan because they are full of perverts and child molesters. Never trust a grown man with a sailor moon t-shirt.

Akira is indeed confusing as hell. Also the first anime I saw. Probably not the best introduction to the world of anime.
When you say Fist of the North Star film do you mean the live action one because thats a piece of poop.
Overfiend sounds like something to avoid to be honest. Hentai and other random pervy anime/manga is best avoided in my book.