Anime Thread: It's like putting salt on sweet vanilla!

[Regulus Tera]

Originally Posted by Odjn

Whereas if you escape a super prison once it's a staggering feat, twice it's miraculous and I would , and the third time afterwards you should've been shot once you left your cell, in which you'd be bound hand and foot so you can't escape again because it's a super prison! Unless she has like strength and endurance or something.

No offence to Bellsouth Minion and Ryong, but Brazilian prisons are hardly known for being the safest in the world.

[Fifthfiend]

I mainly didn't like Michiko due to not liking any of the characters and finding it depressing as fuck. It's kind of like Cowboy Bebop if in the fourth episode of Cowboy Bebop Spike had said fuck off Faye you're on your own and she'd gone back to the guy she owed money to and begged for her life before his psychotic ten-year-olds shot her in the head.

The point about the prisons probably stands; considering that basically everyone in the show is apparently utterly corrupt on every level it's kind of hard to see where by the time she escaped the third time they wouldn't have just shot her in the head.

Anyways Odjn I'm glad to hear you liked Black Lagoon. Yeah if philosophy's your thing it's pretty good as the series is basically an existentialist morality play with gun ballet and Russian paramilitary criminal mobs. It does get heavyhanded and even outright didactic at points but it usually works in that the particular observations are actually really interestingly non-trite, especially in the way they tend to conflict with the sort of stock cliches you'd usually expect from this sort of setting.

[Lumenskir]

Odjn, you want to watch Monster. Absolutely no wackiness, it could easily be acted out by real people (i.e., it's realistic), and it's engaging.

[phil_]

And Monster goes on and on and on and on, so, if you like it, there will be plenty for you to enjoy.

[Mike McC]

Just be warned, Monster does move a bit slowly, but it's worth it.

[Kim]

Just because this doesn't get recommended enough, though the wackiness would probably scare Odjn away, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. A satire on many things in modern society, with funny, interesting characters that are all two-dimensional in a good way. It's not about character development. It's about taking one thing that is wrong with society and making fun of it for ten minutes with highly entertaining characters before moving onto the next.

[Regulus Tera]

Originally Posted by NonCon, in a PM

Something just hit me about the show. Ignore this PM if you haven't seen ep 13.

Ringo is either Casshern's daughter or neice, I think.

That I didn't think of that sooner surprises me.

Add Luna as the mother and I agree.

I did not like episode thirteen. For all the plot advancement Sins finally got, it felt way too contrived and convenient. The sudden appearance and revelations of Braiking Boss were hammed into the plot, like everything else in this episode.

Also, the new ending sucks.

[Kim]

From what I gathered, it was a one time ED, only used for the last ep of the season. As for the plot, I can imagine something like this happening...

"Okay, time to reveal a little more plot. Wait. Episode thirteen?! That's halfway through the series! Ohshitohshitohshit! Gotta squeeze in a lot of plot to make up for twelve episodes of Casshern and Friends."

[Kaneda]

Originally Posted by Odjn

I like realism. Not like no powers no nothing realism necessarily, although that can be cool...

I like serious philosophy/psychology. Spike from Cowboy Bebop has a bunch of this in his interactions with his nemesis, and from his past life, saying he's already dead. NGE has believable, if annoying sometimes, characters with various consistent flaws. Shinji can't deal with people, so he avoids them to prevent rejection. Asuka fights and shows off to get attention. They're not Random Psychological Disorder tacked on with a cliche back story.

I definitely recommend Paranoia Agent then. The overall tone of the show is very much grounded in realism (although in the last couple of episodes some elements are less so, although never wacky or feeling out of place). It essentially follows a pair of detectives investigating a street assailant, but grows into a sort of commentary on Japanese culture, and how it reacted to events like the atomic bomb. Also it's only 13 episodes, so not particularly demanding of much time.

[Kim]

Check out Paprika as well. Made by same person, and a lot of stuff towards the end makes now sense, but I always kind of looked at that as the movie reflecting the feel and experience of what it's about.