Nothing amazing ever happens here.

Post by **Crazy Penguin** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 5:37 am

Everyone loves Cowboy Bebop.

Sniffnoy · Post by **Sniffnoy** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 5:40 am

Except the ending.

Post by **Delphine** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 11:11 am

The ending works, though.

j-man · Post by **j-man** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 12:13 pm

But it made me cry. :(

Locit · Post by **Locit** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 1:25 pm

The ending was good!

Protodude · Post by **Protodude** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 1:40 pm

The ending WAS good, but I was expecting better considering the hype for the last two episodes.

Also, manga's still as cool as ever.

Post by **Crazy Penguin** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 3:31 pm

Cowboy Bebop has one of the best endings ever. Nothing else would have worked as well within the context of the full series.

Protodude · Post by **Protodude** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 3:59 pm

Oh, I totally agree with you there, nothing else could have worked. It's been so long since I've seen it, but I think it had something to do with me not connecting with the characters or something. It also didn't help that I knew Dyke Spies.

Sniffnoy · Post by **Sniffnoy** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 5:54 pm

Meh. It was a cop-out.

Honestly I think that entire story was built in pretty clumsily.

Post by **Delphine** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 6:08 pm

BLASPHEMER.

Post by **Popcorn** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 6:11 pm

Sniffnoy wrote:
Honestly I think that entire story was built in pretty clumsily.

I agree with you. It's a good series, but Bebop is style over substance. The soundtrack is the best thing about it.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 6:52 pm

Cowboy Bebop is the music. Yoko Kanno made that series.

The best episodes were the ones where they were just fucking around, like the Alien lobster and the mushrooms.

Post by **Pepperidge** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 1:00 am

Protodude wrote:Also, manga's still as cool as ever.

Well, that's like saying books are as cool as ever. Lots of crap, but still many notable titles. 20th Century Boys is, indeed, a fucking masterpiece. I'm assuming Del has read it by now?

I do agree that anime has lost a lot of flair though, if not only because of the extreme lack of original productions we've been seeing lately. Honestly... I have to agree with most people in this thread that Paranoia Agent is the last great "original" anime that I've seen. Personally, I blame the fact that most anime has moved to late night "otaku-only" time slots where studios can basically just get away with pure fan-pandering on low budgets, while they make money doing mainstream audience shows of varying (usually low) quality for prime time. The circumstances just don't exist for the kind of high-quality, original wide-appeal programming we saw until the late nineties to be produced anymore.

There have been some fantastic manga adaptations though, namely the ones produced by Madhouse such as Monster, Death Note, and NANA.

The Bad Buttons · Post by **The Bad Buttons** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 4:11 am

The ending Made me Blue

Cuckooguy · Post by **Cuckooguy** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 5:42 am

Great "original" anime? Does that mean an anime that's not a manga adaptation or original in terms of setting and story and doesn't borrow on heavily used themes?

Incidentally, I'm in the camp that never really cared for Cowboy Bebop.

Also, Death Note sucks once the author brings in Amane Misa.

Protodude · Post by **Protodude** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:13 am

No, Deathnote sucks after L dies.

jenkins · Post by **jenkins** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 8:33 am

That's only as far as I've read...what do you have against the rest of the series? And I think it's finished in Japan now, capping off at volume 12...

Post by **Pepperidge** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:19 am

Protodude wrote:No, Deathnote sucks after L dies.

The beauty of the anime is that it's only going to be 37 episodes, and the current pacing (four episodes to a volume) suggests that the crap half is going to be severely truncated, if not changed completely. I'd keep an eye on it, since it has the potential to surpass the manga. I mean, Madhouse made Monster, of all things, slightly better than the source material.

jenkins · Post by **jenkins** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 3:10 pm

*snort*

Shadow Hog · Post by **Shadow Hog** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 3:25 pm

I liked Fullmetal Alchemist an awful lot (seriously, it was like the only show I regularly watched at the time), and I've found most people have too. That said, I can't speak for pretty much anyone here, although I somewhat recall people generally liking it in past topics. Dunno if the status quo changed since then.

Oh, and I watched the dub. Bite me.

Radrappy · Post by **Radrappy** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 3:27 pm

I never read the manga but I found the Bleach anime ( at least the 23 fansubbed episodes I watched) to be really unremarkable in terms of style and animation. Story was a little typical for a boys' cartoon. It's shoddy at best.

Sniffnoy · Post by **Sniffnoy** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 5:30 pm

I watched Naruto for about 120 episodes despite not actually liking it just because I had to find out what happened next. I was very glad when I finally managed to stop.

MegaKitsune · Post by **MegaKitsune** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 5:31 pm

Crazy Penguin wrote:Everyone loves Cowboy Bebop.

Not me. I'm more of an Outlaw Star/Tenchi Universe kinda guy.

Sniffnoy wrote:I watched Naruto for about 120 episodes despite not actually liking it just because I had to find out what happened next. I was very glad when I finally managed to stop.

Yeah, that show is not very good. X_X

Baba O'Reily · Post by **Baba O'Reily** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 7:00 am

I don't really think that watching Naruto is a good

Hey, let's go explore an idea for three sentences! I really enjoy paragraphs. They sure are nifty. In fact, I once met a paragraph master!

Oh, and I happen to like hyperboles. In fact, I once met a hyperbole master!

Semicolons are pretty neat. I once met a man whose sole power was to deactivate semicolons!

Post by **Squirrelknight** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 5:46 pm

I think there's been plenty of anime post-Paranoia Agent that's been worth watching. Sure, there was a dry spell for awhile when absolutely no good anime was coming out, but it seems to have gotten better recently; Mushishi has a nice, subdued vibe that really reminds me of Kino's Journey (though Kino's Journey is still superior, Mushishi is still worth a watch,) and of course, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was easily one of the best shows I've seen in years.

Also, I know my heterosexuality will take a hit for recommending this, but Ouendan Host Club was fucking hilarious, and while we're getting gay with things, I'd also recommend Paradise Kiss and to a lesser extent Nana. Oh, and Honey and Clover is worth watching, though the show takes a turn for the suicidally depressing during the second season. Seriously, some of the episodes from the end of the series will have you holding a razor blade to your wrist.

But yeah, Deathnote does suck once L dies. It's amazing how such a fast moving, interesting story can just lose all of it's momentum and potential within a few pages of a manga, but it does, and the story never really recovers. I understand that it had to happen eventually, but the fact that it happens just past the middle of the manga and makes the rest of the story drag on like a stump really killed some of my enjoyment of Death Note.

I also watched the entirety of Eureka Seven in one weekend a couple of weeks ago, and while there's noting particularly original about the story, it is a kind of shallow fun. I mean, hey, sky-diving robots.