Hi everyone.

As a kid I watched anime every now and then such as pokemon or yugioh but of course, all in english. What inspired me to learn Japanese was Miyazaki films that I had watched in jpn with eng subtitles.

Now through the years I've developed a love for kind of steampunk and/or futuristic versions of Japan. One of my favorite video games is aptly named "NEO東京" which is a first person shooter based on Ghost in the Shell Japan.

Now I'm a beginner in terms of vocab and I have been to japan for a 6 week period. This means for some reason I'm able to understand a small amount of Japanese, but much more than you'd expect a beginner to be able to get. However, that's as much as I can say about myself.

I'm looking for an anime that's light hearted, fun, action packed, and kind of futuristic, but not too advanced or deep like Ghost or Akira or something (which I plan on watching... some day when I'm not sucky).

Someone mentioned "フリクリ" and I googled an excerpt and it seemed cool. I just wanted to know if anyone else has seen it and if it matches my criteria above, and I wanted to know where I could watch this series with Japanese subtitles.

Thank you!
Sorry for the thread that has probably been asked in different ways a thousand times.

Well, this is just my personal opinion but, furikuri sucks. Instead of being deep or complex like akira and ghost in the shell, it's just impossible to follow because 90% of what's going on is completely random and makes no sense. I guess you could say it is light hearted, action packed and all those things, but since everything is so random, there's really nothing to hold your attention more than "I wonder what crazy new random thing will happen in this episode... oh, a robot coming out of the main characters head, I see."

Hey Z&H.
If you like フリクリ(which I enjoyed very much because it's not as random as it appears at first), you could try Gurren Lagann (same vibe, easy, light, fun, and not random). For a great scope of vocab (but more random), see also Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai. The first season of Mahoromatic is not bad, and probably more easy (check it out on Wikipedia to see if you like it).
And in a different style, but also with a large extent of everyday vocabulary, the mighty "Paranoia Agent".

Actually, my impression of フリクリ is that it makes a lot more sense than Akira. Though, I admit that the first couple of times I watched through フリクリ I couldn't make heads or tails of it. My opinion at the time was pretty similar to yours, Tobberoth, and I didn't like the show at all. Which makes me wonder why I watched it through a couple more times and ended up really liking it, haha.

I think Ghost in the Shell is boring, though I admit there's a possibility that I haven't given it enough of a chance.

I can't think of any other anime that are light-hearted and futuristic, haha. I can think of a lot of not-light-hearted futuristic anime though^^

Tobberoth Wrote:Well, this is just my personal opinion but, furikuri sucks. Instead of being deep or complex like akira and ghost in the shell, it's just impossible to follow because 90% of what's going on is completely random and makes no sense. I guess you could say it is light hearted, action packed and all those things, but since everything is so random, there's really nothing to hold your attention more than "I wonder what crazy new random thing will happen in this episode... oh, a robot coming out of the main characters head, I see."

FLCL makes sense, you just have to watch it 20 or so times. You won't really figure how whats happening until you put all the pieces of the puzzle together. I love all the references to anime culture they throw in.

I thought Ghost in the Shell, and especially Innocence was pretty boring, although probably worth seeing once. I'm a fan of Stand Alone Complex though, but that's probably even harder to follow in terms of language. I think a lot of natives would struggle to keep up with some of the dialogue.

As for recommendations, I saw a cell-shaded anime called Freedom. It's futuristic, kept me entertained, and I could follow just about all of it without using subtitles. I think it's worth watching just for the animation, especially if you can get it in HD.

I think Cowboy Bebop would qualify as well, but it's still pretty hard to understand. A must-see if you haven't seen it already though.

zachandhobbes Wrote:I'm looking for an anime that's light hearted, fun, action packed, and kind of futuristic, but not too advanced or deep like Ghost or Akira or something (which I plan on watching... some day when I'm not sucky).

Someone mentioned "フリクリ" and I googled an excerpt and it seemed cool. I just wanted to know if anyone else has seen it and if it matches my criteria above, and I wanted to know where I could watch this series with Japanese subtitles.

Well, I think FLCL matches your criteria for content, although it's probably a bit tricky for a beginner because it is a bit random rather than having a straightforward-to-follow plot (and there's some pretty fast speech in there in places IIRC).

It looks like kitsunekko has the Japanese subtitles (as a zipfile of .ass files so you'll need to get the video from somewhere else, eg a legit copy of the DVDs ;-)). PS: I think kitsunekko got owned recently and a bunch of dodgy stuff got put in some of the zipfiles. They seem to have fixed it, at least the FLCL one looks OK to me, but as usual take care that what you're downloading is what you think it is...

Gurren Lagann will blow your mind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurren_Lagann

try dennou coil and re:cutey honey.

Among popular classic anime, Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star would fall into the category you described. Also, there's no reason not to watch Ghost in the Shell right now. The original movie is simply awesome if you like the style.

If your definition of "steampunk and/or futuristic" includes Final Fantasy and such, Last Exile is a masterpiece. This is arguably the best TV anime series of its kind ever created.

Black Lagoon and Trigun also share some of the features you mentioned and can be recommended to people who have never watched anime other than super popular shows.

All of these shows have much better localized English versions than your average obscure anime, so you can watch a few episodes of each show in English first to see if it's your cup of tea.

フリクリ is a fine, stylish show. But it can be surprisingly boring. I can see how younger kids enjoy it. Also, if you've already watched tons of anime from uber-popular ones to obscure OVAs, you might appreciate how stylish it is. But if you don't fall into either of the two categories, most likely you'll find it boring and wonder how come so many people recommend it.

Also, if you like Ghibli's works, you might also want to check out The girl who leapt through time. It's an animated movie rebroadcast like every summer in Japan.

zachandhobbes Wrote:I'm looking for an anime that's light hearted, fun, action packed, and kind of futuristic, but not too advanced or deep like Ghost or Akira or something

I give another thumbs up for Dennou Coil. It's exactly what you're looking for.

Tobberoth Wrote:Well, this is just my personal opinion but, furikuri sucks. Instead of being deep or complex like akira and ghost in the shell, it's just impossible to follow because 90% of what's going on is completely random and makes no sense.

FLCL is one of the deepest [not obvious, going far beneath what is superficial] anime I've ever watched: almost everything has something hidden inside it, and almost everything is hidden inside something in some way (even the fact that the anime is an allegory itself is hidden behind a huge comedy facade). I think deepness-wise, it's only beaten by Haibane Renmei; maybe Mushishi.

iSoron Wrote:FLCL is one of the deepest [not obvious, going far beneath what is superficial] anime I've ever watched: almost everything has something hidden inside it, and almost everything is hidden inside something in some way (even the fact that the anime is an allegory itself is hidden behind a huge comedy facade). I think deepness-wise, it's only beaten by Haibane Renmei; maybe Mushishi.

Yeah, but you can watch FLCL for the comedy facade so don't be put off if you don't like pretentiousness :-)

I didn't think Dennou Coil was all that wonderful. Certainly not a bad anime, very watchable, but I wouldn't put it on my all-time-greats list. (Now Haibane Renmei I agree is very good, although of course it doesn't fit the original criteria at all...)

pm215 Wrote:Now Haibane Renmei I agree is very good

deep ≠ good

iSoron Wrote:

pm215 Wrote:Now Haibane Renmei I agree is very good

deep ≠ good

As usual, in an anime recommendation thread, people start to list every anime they ever saw that they ever liked. Wow how cool. :p

Thanks everyone.

I'm going to look up FLCL and Gurren Lagann first, then look up more from this thread.

I know this probably requires another thread, but what is the suggested method of mining these shows?

There's the Khatz AJATT way: Just listen and watch with JPN Subs and put in whatever you can somewhat understand but not fully (n+1) which might work for me since I have some basics in Japanese, but it would be a bit boring to watch the whole thing only understanding about 20% of it

The IceCream way (read it in another thread): Watch with ENG Subs with the JPN Subs txt file ready. When you find a sentence in ENG subtitles that you like or are interested in, find corresponding JPN subtitles in txt file and put that in SRS. Would be more 'fun' but I do know people don't like the idea of ENG subtitles since you faze out some of the listening that you would get from it.

Opinions? Ideas?

Also where can I 'obtain' fooly cooly and Gurren Lagann with JPN subtitles?

ocircle Wrote:

iSoron Wrote:

pm215 Wrote:Now Haibane Renmei I agree is very good

deep ≠ good

As usual, in an anime recommendation thread, people start to list every anime they ever saw that they ever liked. Wow how cool. :p

Oh yes.

I personally think that Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat would be something you would be very interested in. It's fun, action packed, and set in the Quing dinasty, but since it's from the point of view of kitten scribes, everything is new to them, and therefore has the same edge of novelty that futuristic shows have.

As far as I know, it's only in English, for now, but we could get a bunch of gaijin voice actors to redub it. I call playing Fufu, the lucky bat.

Don't kid around hereticalrants, Sagwa the Siamese Cat will never get non-gaijin actors.

It's such a beautiful piece of animation, however. I watched it as a young child and never picked up on the deeper meanings, such as the process of planting potted plants correctly and always being nice to my friends at dinner time.

zachandhobbes Wrote:Now I'm a beginner in terms of vocab and I have been to japan for a 6 week period. This means for some reason I'm able to understand a small amount of Japanese, but much more than you'd expect a beginner to be able to get. However, that's as much as I can say about myself.

I think that's great. So I'm imagining that from listening to the language, you developed an unusually good sense of particles (since they're used so much more than other parts of speech), but you're relatively lacking in vocabulary. I get the feeling that people who do Heisig, KO, and such, often start with the opposite problem.

Regarding anime, I'm not sure what I would recommend. I don't think I know any anime like what you described. So you want:

1. Easy. Maybe an elementary school level anime, like something that's broadcast in the morning.

2. Light-hearted / Fun. So not something noir, or tragic, or romantic, or dramatic.

3. Action-packed. Less talking, more fighting.

4. Kind of futuristic. So set in a sci-fi universe, preferably not set in the contemporary world, and definitely not some historical samurai anime.

So each of the above criteria eliminates about 2/3 of what I know, until in the end, I'm left with no recommendations. But if I were to think of something that's recently been popular for each category, it would be something like:

1. Easy: Doraemon. About a robot cat. But not action-packed and usually not futuristic.

2. Light-hearted: K-On. About a high school pop music band. Oddly enough, this might be the most popular anime out there today, although it's neither action-packed nor futuristic. Chi's Sweet Home. This is about a kitten, so probably fits none of the other criteria, except for being easy.

3. Action-packed: Katanagatari (About samurai sword gathering, not futuristic). Bleach (About shinigami, not futuristic). Hajime no Ippo (About boxing, not futuristic). Inuyasha.

4. Kind of futuristic: I don't know the following too well, but they've appeared in top 10 lists. I don't think they're light-hearted though. Blacker than Black, Code Geass, Macross.

In the end, I have no recommendations. But anime like what you described must exist - otherwise, schoolboys would have hardly anything to watch.

Haha, yeah Mushi!

I studied Japanese for 3 years in middle school and freshman year before I went to Japan, but we all know how good school based classes are. I learned Hiragana and Katakana really well and I learned the basics of particles. However my vocab never progressed and I only knew how to speak in polite form.

My trip to Japan reinforced a lot of the knowledge I had so I can understand a WHOLE lot more. When I learn a new vocab, my understanding increases a whole lot, because I know particles so I can fit it perfectly into the sentence. It's just about knowing the actual vocab which is the issue . I can't wait to finish RtK so I can start on sentences. I feel like I will grow exponentially.

Thanks for all the recommendations! I actually recognize Doraemon because when I was a kid my mom would give those books to me (she's Japanese), but I never could understand them. Maybe I'll dig them up...

zachandhobbes Wrote:Don't kid around hereticalrants, Sagwa the Siamese Cat will never get non-gaijin actors.

I said specifically gaijin voice actors.
We want them to have (mild) accents.

Sorry I misread. Ingenious idea, it will maintain the true culture in which the voicing was done originally.

Like Mushi said, if you go for something more beginner oriented you'll have an easier time, and if there's Japanese subtitles it will be even easier. As for what meets your criteria and has subtitles, I would suggest Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I haven't watched it myself, but I know the series in general is pretty popular. I did find watching this too confusing even with subtitles back when I was probably around your level.

Some other good series that are easy to follow but don't meet your criteria. (All of them have Japanese subtitles available)
K-ON - Very easy vocabulary, nice animation, fun characters
Amagami SS - This and K-ON have been the easiest to understand yet. Every four episodes they focus on a new girl so it stays pretty interesting.
Dragon Ball Kai - This is a kids show so it's pretty easy to follow. It's really only worth watching for the nostalgia if you saw DBZ as a kid.
Clannad - The dialogue in this one is slightly harder than the other shows I listed, but still not too hard. I was surprised how good the show ended up being even with my low expectations.

It's best to study from the stuff that you like, but personally I find myself enjoying what's easier to understand, even if it's something I wouldn't normally like.

Thanks Quincy. Where can I find subbed JPN versions of those animes?

I know a bunch of english sub sites but of course that doesn't really help.

You can get most of the subs here
http://kitsunekko.net/subtitles/japanese/
and this site will have subs for new episodes for the series they're recording as soon as the raw is out http://transportstreams.org/captions/

The timing is off on the subtitles from the second link (and some of those off time subtitles are in the first link too). I use Aegisub to retime them (usually this is a certain time adjustment in the beginning of the file, and removing a one minute gap after the opening song and after the commercial break. I have some subs for amagami-ss and Dragonball Kai that I've already adjusted if you want them.

sure I'll take the amagami-ss ones.