CK's Animae Report
Mar. 21st, 2011 11:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muck_a_luckWe have been slowly dipping our toes into this genre.
I will admit that my basic idea of animae was that it was basically about big-eyed child women with gigantic breasts, scantily clad, shooting bazookas at Transformers.
So, I have been pleasantly surprised. Of course, we've been fairly selective and haven't delved too deeply yet, but for anyone who might be interested...
First, the TV shows we have watched.
1. Ghost in the Shell. OK, admittedly, the kick-ass heroine of this show IS, in fact, a scantily-clad, well-endowed, android. Sorry to have to start off that way. This show is set in a futuristic world where everyone has cyber inplants in their brains - think Bluetooth for your brain - and people can get prosthetic bodies, either after terrible accidents or just because they want to be tougher cops. It's about a paramilitary unit fighting corruption and conspiracy in Japan. Interesting. Sometimes deep. Some of the conspiracies are pretty complex and I haven't seen all the eps, so I did find it a little confusing. Not a bad show.
2. Cowboy Beebop. OK, admittedly, I was *extremely resistant* to watching this based on it's ridiculous name. That is the only bad thing about this show. It is by far some of the best television you are likely to ever see, especially if you are the kind of person who thinks Firefly was one of the best shows ever. Three bounty hunters on a spaceship, eeking out a living in a colonized solar system. There are funny standalone stories, and more serious stories that are part of an arc about organized crime.
3. Samurai Champloo. AWESOME. From the same folks that brought us Cowboy Beebop. Set in Edo period Japan, but with lots of anacrhonistic features, including "hip hop" influences, Japanese style. A young woman recruits two wandering swordsmen to be her bodyguards as she searches for "the samurai who smells of sunflowers." Very funny, very bloody, and absolutely beautifully drawn. Also, this show was a lesson in how it can be hard to watch a show from another culture. When we started looking at web-stuff about the show, we realized how much we missed becuase we don't know Japanese history. It's background stuff, and missing it doesn't interfere with enjoyment of the show, though. LOVED THIS.
4. Eden of the East. Definitely putting this one in a second tier. Didn't suck, though, and it did have a fairly original premise. 12 people are forced to participate in a game in which they each get 10 billing yen to spend however they want to "fix" Japanese society, with death the penalty for failure. Whiney, annoying female lead, but the story is engaging. And instead of busty, scantily clad female characters, by the end you get 20 thousand naked guys running around with their "johnnys" blurred out.
In the category of movies, so far we have only seen "My Neighbor Totoro," a kids' movie about two girls who move into a "haunted house" with their father and meet the fantastic creatures who live in the neighborhood. Very sweet, and, like Champloo, *beautiful* to watch.
I will admit that my basic idea of animae was that it was basically about big-eyed child women with gigantic breasts, scantily clad, shooting bazookas at Transformers.
So, I have been pleasantly surprised. Of course, we've been fairly selective and haven't delved too deeply yet, but for anyone who might be interested...
First, the TV shows we have watched.
1. Ghost in the Shell. OK, admittedly, the kick-ass heroine of this show IS, in fact, a scantily-clad, well-endowed, android. Sorry to have to start off that way. This show is set in a futuristic world where everyone has cyber inplants in their brains - think Bluetooth for your brain - and people can get prosthetic bodies, either after terrible accidents or just because they want to be tougher cops. It's about a paramilitary unit fighting corruption and conspiracy in Japan. Interesting. Sometimes deep. Some of the conspiracies are pretty complex and I haven't seen all the eps, so I did find it a little confusing. Not a bad show.
2. Cowboy Beebop. OK, admittedly, I was *extremely resistant* to watching this based on it's ridiculous name. That is the only bad thing about this show. It is by far some of the best television you are likely to ever see, especially if you are the kind of person who thinks Firefly was one of the best shows ever. Three bounty hunters on a spaceship, eeking out a living in a colonized solar system. There are funny standalone stories, and more serious stories that are part of an arc about organized crime.
3. Samurai Champloo. AWESOME. From the same folks that brought us Cowboy Beebop. Set in Edo period Japan, but with lots of anacrhonistic features, including "hip hop" influences, Japanese style. A young woman recruits two wandering swordsmen to be her bodyguards as she searches for "the samurai who smells of sunflowers." Very funny, very bloody, and absolutely beautifully drawn. Also, this show was a lesson in how it can be hard to watch a show from another culture. When we started looking at web-stuff about the show, we realized how much we missed becuase we don't know Japanese history. It's background stuff, and missing it doesn't interfere with enjoyment of the show, though. LOVED THIS.
4. Eden of the East. Definitely putting this one in a second tier. Didn't suck, though, and it did have a fairly original premise. 12 people are forced to participate in a game in which they each get 10 billing yen to spend however they want to "fix" Japanese society, with death the penalty for failure. Whiney, annoying female lead, but the story is engaging. And instead of busty, scantily clad female characters, by the end you get 20 thousand naked guys running around with their "johnnys" blurred out.
In the category of movies, so far we have only seen "My Neighbor Totoro," a kids' movie about two girls who move into a "haunted house" with their father and meet the fantastic creatures who live in the neighborhood. Very sweet, and, like Champloo, *beautiful* to watch.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-23 12:46 am (UTC)I generally try to avoid the busty, scantily-clad genre - especially if it looks to be what I call up-skirt. However, I have gotten sucked into a couple of shows that seemed to use that stuff as frosting on a real plot with actual characters.
Have a lot of fun!