I absolutely second Mind Game. If you enjoy that film, I also heartily recommend checking out Kemonozume, a 2006 anime TV series by the same director (Masaaki Yuasa) and a very similar, highly experimental animation style - very off the wall, funny, sexy, bizarre series.

Has Black Lagoon been mentioned yet? Another favorite of mine, VERY Western influenced (bits of English here and there to... varying degrees of success), tons of action, badass characters and colorful (often quite vulgar) dialogue you probably won't hear very often otherwise.

(Though I'd revise this thread rather than starting a new one.)

Anyone know of an anime that explores Japanese otaku and video game culture, similar to 'Welcome to the NHK'? I'm really interested in those subjects, so would love to find something in a similar vein..

iSoron wrote:

aphasiac wrote:

Anyone know of an anime that explores Japanese otaku and video game culture, similar to 'Welcome to the NHK'? I'm really interested in those subjects, so would love to find something in a similar vein..

Have you watched Genshiken?

Nope. Sorry I should have pointed out, I really know nothing absolutely about anime, and have only seen Deathnote, Welcome to NHK plus quite a few random episodes shown by my uni's anime society.

Anyway looked it up - Genshiken looks perfect! is it any good?

Last edited by aphasiac (2010 April 18, 9:30 am)

I definitely want to watch almost everything mentioned in this thread but I'll do it AFTER I learn Japanese to a sufficient level to actually appreciate them in original form.

It's not only about satisfaction of doing so but more about correctness of translation and certain "vibe" that gets lost during any intervention in authors work. If professional translators can't even grasp something simple like "Friends" and just go English -> Polish (which is much closer than Japanese -> English) one can only wonder how many things get "lost in translation" during work on harder and more serious material especially if done by fans (being a fan doesn't make you competent).

thurd wrote:

but I'll do it AFTER I learn Japanese to a sufficient level to actually appreciate them in original form.

Good idea, but if my experience is anything to go by, it's also worth your time to watch things before you're at a "sufficient level" to appreciate them.  Don't worry, you can watch things again once you've "leveled up" and enjoy them even more seeing how much you've improved. 

For example, Digimon Tamers was the first anime I watched without subtitles.  I recently watched it again and it was great fun actually knowing what they were talking about this time around.

Beware of perfectionism: if you insist on only watching what you're ready to fully understand, you may never get around to it.

Indeed, no better time to start watching (subless!) stuff than right now. Don't worry if you don't get everything or even anything right of the bat, if its an anime you love you can always revisit it when you are more proficient.

Just watching a lot of stuff helps out a lot, don't underestimate the whole 'immersion' thing, its not just for kicks.

I myself watched subbed(!) anime for around 2.5 years before actually starting seriously learning Japanese, and even that gave me quite a decent bit of vocabulary knowledge to start with. Further more it got me adjusted to the sound of Japanese.

I've been seriously studying Japanese for around 8 months now or so and watched all of my anime without subs during that time. Going through core2k right now, I already know most 'new' words because I learned them through immersion already. The only thing I currently learn from 2K is linking the correct kanji with those words. I also can now follow ~90% of whatever anime I watch without problems. Listening is by far my strongest point currently.

Check out this blog Star-Crossed Anime Blog.  Anything he rates over 90 will fall into the category your talking about in some way or another, either by including original ideas/elements in the story, or developing characters far beyond the typical anime cliches.  It's truly the best anime blog on the net.  I could list/describe a ton, but really, psgels has already done all that work, so I'll just point you to his blog.  Enjoy!

Last edited by kendo99 (2010 April 18, 2:17 pm)

bindasj wrote:

Legend of Galactic Heroes a Science Fiction - Space Opera...

I loved this anime, it's definitely not the typical kind of anime and is oriented towards adults.  The animation is a little dated, but the plot is stellar!

Yes! Finally. ;p (See page 2 of this thread and elsewhere on the forum: http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?pid=38703#p38703)

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (ひぐらしのなく頃に, When the Cicadas Cry) - I don't really want to say much about it... suffice to say it's disturbing and dark, but also bright and funny.

Last edited by b0ng0 (2010 April 21, 6:30 am)

jungle is always hare and guu.
personally i found geshiken, higurashi, lucky star, fma, etc terrrible. but iloved welcome to the nhk... that's definitley not typical.

I've got to second Masaaki Yuasa, ESPECIALLY Kaiba.  Also, have you seen the short work he did for the Genius Party compilation?  Actually, Genius Party is one of the coolest things around anyway.  Also, Sweat Punch is another great avante garde anime compilation.  There's a story in it called "Comedy" that you may be able to locate seperately, that is one of the few stories I've seen that can tell a story in a few minutes and have genuine character development AND a plot.  You have to watch it twice or more to understand everything, but that's easy because it's enjoyable and very visually striking.  Checkerout, yo!

EDIT: Also, Cencoroll It's a short independent animated film, that really defies genre expectations.  Very enjoyable.  The subs on this version are horrible, so just ignore them.

Last edited by kendo99 (2010 April 21, 1:07 pm)

kendo99 wrote:

Check out this blog Star-Crossed Anime Blog.  Anything he rates over 90 will fall into the category your talking about in some way or another, either by including original ideas/elements in the story, or developing characters far beyond the typical anime cliches.  It's truly the best anime blog on the net.  I could list/describe a ton, but really, psgels has already done all that work, so I'll just point you to his blog.  Enjoy!

That blog is awesome... I've now got a list of 10 series I really want to watch. Thanks!

nest0r wrote:

It's not an anime, but the manga Bakuman looks like it might be in a similar area: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclo … p?id=10225

It's also probably worth mentioning Bakuman is from the same author of Death Note.