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OK, that makes sense. I was reading over all the movies and they sounded so similar. Guess that explains why. I'll just stick to the ones in the sets for now.
What anime are you watching?
- Thread starter neo-geo-mvs
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Rewatched the '90s Trigun series. I remember really liking it back in the day. Now, it seems just okay. Not bad or anything, but I kept thinking, wasn't there more to this?
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- Dec 14, 2004
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That show bored the tits off me. “Oh i just cant fight” “why dont you fight, please fight! We need you!!” Snore…
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Watched Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture this afternoon. While it's not on the same level as the SF animated movie or as close to the plot of the games as the 2 OVAs it's still fun in it's own right. It's just that the plot is so ridiculous and removed from anything in the games. The animation is certainly a step up from the OVAs though and there's some genuinely impressive scenes. The bad guy character designs are pretty goofy but that's what happens when you hire the guy behind Voltage Fighter Gowkaizer. That also means more fan service and random pervy stuff. They really managed to cram a lot of characters in it though. It's been years since I'd seen it and I'd forgotten a good amount so it was a nice surprise to see Billy Kane, Duck, Jubei, Lawrence Blood etc. Just a lot of goofy, dumb fun with some good action and enough nods to the games to please most fans.
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I'm still waiting btw
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- Sep 18, 2007
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Watched a few episodes of the Rick and Morty anime.
Nope.
Nope.
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- Sep 14, 2003
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Same here. Double nope!
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- Sep 30, 2002
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- 15,887
Finished up the Terminator anime, which was surprisingly really solid.
Been doing The Elusive Samurai now and it too has been really solid. I wasn't really sold on the manga and stopped keeping up with it, but the animators of the show have made something truly special here with the visuals.
Been doing The Elusive Samurai now and it too has been really solid. I wasn't really sold on the manga and stopped keeping up with it, but the animators of the show have made something truly special here with the visuals.
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- Dec 14, 2004
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First season was so good. Everything after was meh, but thats basically how i feel about every successful anime after DBZ.
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- Dec 29, 2000
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- 14,354
I haven't found myself with enough time to do it justice. Hopefully, I can get to it very soon.
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- Sep 16, 2003
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The panty sniffin and stealin would never be accepted today.
Wonder how the redux is gonna address that, if at all.
Same with any new City Hunter we get in the future…no mokkori in the MeToo era.
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Did you see the newest live action movie? It's not the same level of pervy as the old stuff but I was surprised at how far they were willing to go.
You just can't have a guy going around literally sexually assaulting every woman he meets anymore, wether it's funny or not.
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Japan says hold my beer
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- Dec 29, 2000
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THE FIRST SLAM DUNK
Slam Dunk remains in my top ten manga of all time even to this day. I don't really think much of the anime adaptation for television because of its glacial pacing and sub par production values but there was a lot to appreciate about it:
However, in the anime we never got to see that game. Instead, what we got was a practice game ('PRACTICE!') between Shohoku (the protagonist team) and an all star team made up of players from the previous foes Shohoku had faced, all coming together to get our heroes ready to compete against their greatest challenge yet. To say that it wasn't satisfying would be an understatement. The TV series ended on that note, with Shohoku going off to play Sannoh.
However...
...I have never been more ecstatic at having to wait for something I love get an adaptation, if only because The First Slam Dunk finally, FINALLY closes that particular circle. And it does so in such a magnificent way that I am not only happy to see it done justice, but I am absolutely relieved.
Directed by series' creator Takehiko Inoue, the movie is one part pure, faithful adaptation of the last brilliant chapters of Slam Dunk but also a wild deviation from what we got on the printed page all those years ago. Sakuragi, the MC of the manga, does not take center stage here (although his presence is felt throughout and never diminished in the slightest). Instead, the game is punctuated by frequent flashback framing sequences revolving around the point guard, Ryota Miyagi, and his journey as a basketball player.
As the movie plays out, what was once just a perfectly expressed basketball game between two great teams intensely competing becomes a metaphor for the players' raison d'etre. Without basketball, none of these people would even exist. Not even the 'ace' player from Sannoh, Sawakita, who gets his own small sequence that explains to us why this matters to him so much alongside the five starters for Shohoku and their sixth man, Kogure.
Most of these featured players get a scene where we dive into their heads and their pasts to get an understanding of what makes this all so important to them. However, it is Miyagi whose life we get the best looks at. Always too short and a little frail, Miyagi holds on to basketball because it is all he has left of his father and his older brother. His mother loves him very much but she resents basketball because it is an activity that takes the men in her life away from her and, for whatever reason, they never come back. The men in the Miyagi family all have a dedication and a drive to do well (the 'ganbaru' aesthetic prevalent in Japan to this day) and it has cost them twice already.
Kaoru risks becoming the devouring mother by trying to remove the thing from Ryota's life that gives him drive, purpose and heart. What she doesn't understand, however, is that it's not just competition that drives Miyagi to keep at it despite being undersized and always facing an uphill battle to carve out his own spot in the canvas of Japanese hoops. For Ryota, basketball is a way to keep the memory of his brother and his father alive. Without it, he might forget them the same way Kaoru wants to. She does it artly out of fear of losing her only son (she has a daughter, Anna, as well) and partly because it's too painful for her to look back, but the movie is essentially warning us that if put aside the things that make us remember people, then we will forget who they were. Miyagi isn't just fighting for himself (although there is very much the need to excel in his chosen path). He's fighting for his father and brother and their right to exist.
I also want to add that Miyagi has lingering regrets about how he acted the last time he saw his brother, just like his mother had regrets about the last time she saw his father. For Miyagi, grieving is a major factor in his motivation. Becoming self destructive and delinquent are signs of depression and apathy for Miyagi. Basketball was the only way in which he could keep his brother in his heart and also a way to make amends by being himself as well as his more talented older brother Souta on the basketball court. It's a deeply complex story and difficult to summarize without giving too much away.
This struggle is masterfully interwoven into the events of the basketball game between Sannoh and Shohoku, and each of the players will face a crisis during the events which will demand they step up or step away. This is an entirely new narrative woven in to the framework of a 30 year old story, brand new light shed on these characters that never appeared on the pages but which seamlessly flows into the existing events. Inoue once famously said that he would only return to Slam Dunk if he had something new to say with it. This isn't him just taking care of old business. He is revisiting the material and adding new layers on to it. It's brilliant.
This movie is over two hours long but it never feels like it to me despite its sometimes somber flashback sequences and quieter, more contemplative moments. And with the production values sky high, I can confidently say that Inoue has presented a sport in animated form in a way that live action simply could not reproduce. That is a huge boast to make about a basketball anime but I just did it. Fite me.
The characters have been recast but this serves Inoue's purposes very well. The characters are what matter, not the voices behind them. They are wonderfully preserved and brought foward. I truly felt as though no time had passed at all between the end of the anime and the beginning of this film even though they are two vastly different beasts in terms of the technical aspects of the production. The film retains all of the soul, passion and humor of that last game in the manga, while simultaneously showing it to us in a light that makes it feel all new. Try not to cheer when an injured Sakuragi fights for the board late in the game, pitches it out to Miyagi and then collapses onto the parquet while the teams race to the other side with time running out. Sakuragi's selflessness in that moment, putting his body and his future on the line for a chance to win as the camera follows the action to the other end of the court, the fallen hero shrinking in our vision, is the essence of sacrifice. These were probably sequences Inoue has been dreaming of portraying in animated form for years.
This film is filled with these moments.
It is the best animated film I have ever seen. And over a year removed from the day when I saw it twice in the theater (once in the morning with the wife, once in the evening with the roomie), my opinion hasn't changed.
This is how we do it.
Slam Dunk remains in my top ten manga of all time even to this day. I don't really think much of the anime adaptation for television because of its glacial pacing and sub par production values but there was a lot to appreciate about it:
- Banger OPs and EDs
- Nearly perfect voice casting for all the characters
- Fantastic character designs and art direction
However, in the anime we never got to see that game. Instead, what we got was a practice game ('PRACTICE!') between Shohoku (the protagonist team) and an all star team made up of players from the previous foes Shohoku had faced, all coming together to get our heroes ready to compete against their greatest challenge yet. To say that it wasn't satisfying would be an understatement. The TV series ended on that note, with Shohoku going off to play Sannoh.
However...
...I have never been more ecstatic at having to wait for something I love get an adaptation, if only because The First Slam Dunk finally, FINALLY closes that particular circle. And it does so in such a magnificent way that I am not only happy to see it done justice, but I am absolutely relieved.
Directed by series' creator Takehiko Inoue, the movie is one part pure, faithful adaptation of the last brilliant chapters of Slam Dunk but also a wild deviation from what we got on the printed page all those years ago. Sakuragi, the MC of the manga, does not take center stage here (although his presence is felt throughout and never diminished in the slightest). Instead, the game is punctuated by frequent flashback framing sequences revolving around the point guard, Ryota Miyagi, and his journey as a basketball player.
As the movie plays out, what was once just a perfectly expressed basketball game between two great teams intensely competing becomes a metaphor for the players' raison d'etre. Without basketball, none of these people would even exist. Not even the 'ace' player from Sannoh, Sawakita, who gets his own small sequence that explains to us why this matters to him so much alongside the five starters for Shohoku and their sixth man, Kogure.
Most of these featured players get a scene where we dive into their heads and their pasts to get an understanding of what makes this all so important to them. However, it is Miyagi whose life we get the best looks at. Always too short and a little frail, Miyagi holds on to basketball because it is all he has left of his father and his older brother. His mother loves him very much but she resents basketball because it is an activity that takes the men in her life away from her and, for whatever reason, they never come back. The men in the Miyagi family all have a dedication and a drive to do well (the 'ganbaru' aesthetic prevalent in Japan to this day) and it has cost them twice already.
Kaoru risks becoming the devouring mother by trying to remove the thing from Ryota's life that gives him drive, purpose and heart. What she doesn't understand, however, is that it's not just competition that drives Miyagi to keep at it despite being undersized and always facing an uphill battle to carve out his own spot in the canvas of Japanese hoops. For Ryota, basketball is a way to keep the memory of his brother and his father alive. Without it, he might forget them the same way Kaoru wants to. She does it artly out of fear of losing her only son (she has a daughter, Anna, as well) and partly because it's too painful for her to look back, but the movie is essentially warning us that if put aside the things that make us remember people, then we will forget who they were. Miyagi isn't just fighting for himself (although there is very much the need to excel in his chosen path). He's fighting for his father and brother and their right to exist.
I also want to add that Miyagi has lingering regrets about how he acted the last time he saw his brother, just like his mother had regrets about the last time she saw his father. For Miyagi, grieving is a major factor in his motivation. Becoming self destructive and delinquent are signs of depression and apathy for Miyagi. Basketball was the only way in which he could keep his brother in his heart and also a way to make amends by being himself as well as his more talented older brother Souta on the basketball court. It's a deeply complex story and difficult to summarize without giving too much away.
This struggle is masterfully interwoven into the events of the basketball game between Sannoh and Shohoku, and each of the players will face a crisis during the events which will demand they step up or step away. This is an entirely new narrative woven in to the framework of a 30 year old story, brand new light shed on these characters that never appeared on the pages but which seamlessly flows into the existing events. Inoue once famously said that he would only return to Slam Dunk if he had something new to say with it. This isn't him just taking care of old business. He is revisiting the material and adding new layers on to it. It's brilliant.
This movie is over two hours long but it never feels like it to me despite its sometimes somber flashback sequences and quieter, more contemplative moments. And with the production values sky high, I can confidently say that Inoue has presented a sport in animated form in a way that live action simply could not reproduce. That is a huge boast to make about a basketball anime but I just did it. Fite me.
The characters have been recast but this serves Inoue's purposes very well. The characters are what matter, not the voices behind them. They are wonderfully preserved and brought foward. I truly felt as though no time had passed at all between the end of the anime and the beginning of this film even though they are two vastly different beasts in terms of the technical aspects of the production. The film retains all of the soul, passion and humor of that last game in the manga, while simultaneously showing it to us in a light that makes it feel all new. Try not to cheer when an injured Sakuragi fights for the board late in the game, pitches it out to Miyagi and then collapses onto the parquet while the teams race to the other side with time running out. Sakuragi's selflessness in that moment, putting his body and his future on the line for a chance to win as the camera follows the action to the other end of the court, the fallen hero shrinking in our vision, is the essence of sacrifice. These were probably sequences Inoue has been dreaming of portraying in animated form for years.
This film is filled with these moments.
It is the best animated film I have ever seen. And over a year removed from the day when I saw it twice in the theater (once in the morning with the wife, once in the evening with the roomie), my opinion hasn't changed.
This is how we do it.
Last edited:
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- May 4, 2004
- Posts
- 12,308
The First Slam Dunk- So Taiso already covered a lot but I figured I'll give my take as well as someone who has pretty much zero knowledge of the manga or anime, only a passing familiarity with Inoue's art. And zero interest in basketball or sports in general.
The movie is indeed excellent. It has an almost restrained feel to it which I wasn't expecting but really appreciated. It has all the tropes of both a sports movie and a shonen but done in a way that makes everything feel much more real, it drops almost all of the usual exaggeration and heightened emotion that both are known for.
It's structured and paced very well mixing flashbacks of the main character's life, motivation etc. and some back story for the supporting characters over the course of a single game. Obviously they could only fit iso much into 2 hours which leaves out a lot of stuff about all the character's relationships and their history playing together. So I think you sou definitely get more out of it if you're familiar with the source material. It definitely made me wish we got to know the characters a bit more.
The animation is very impressive and unique. It's a very deliberate mix of 3D and 2D that is used to separate the story segments from the basketball parts. The 2D fits the tone of the story segments very well. The 3D is somewhat of a mixed bag, when it works it looks incredible and very unique but it doesn't always work and seems a bit under utilized. I know some of that is intentional but when you do see just how good it can look it makes you wonder why they wouldn't kick it into high gear a bit more often.
This is probably one of the few anime movies I could recommend to just about anybody. It's a great example of the kind of story telling the medium is capable of when it's not constrained by the usual issues that it's known for. Nobody is annoying, nothing is too goofy or cringe or cutesy. There's no insipid love story, pervy nonsense or overly drawn out battle and no unnecessary exposition dumps. It's just a really good animated movie.
The movie is indeed excellent. It has an almost restrained feel to it which I wasn't expecting but really appreciated. It has all the tropes of both a sports movie and a shonen but done in a way that makes everything feel much more real, it drops almost all of the usual exaggeration and heightened emotion that both are known for.
It's structured and paced very well mixing flashbacks of the main character's life, motivation etc. and some back story for the supporting characters over the course of a single game. Obviously they could only fit iso much into 2 hours which leaves out a lot of stuff about all the character's relationships and their history playing together. So I think you sou definitely get more out of it if you're familiar with the source material. It definitely made me wish we got to know the characters a bit more.
The animation is very impressive and unique. It's a very deliberate mix of 3D and 2D that is used to separate the story segments from the basketball parts. The 2D fits the tone of the story segments very well. The 3D is somewhat of a mixed bag, when it works it looks incredible and very unique but it doesn't always work and seems a bit under utilized. I know some of that is intentional but when you do see just how good it can look it makes you wonder why they wouldn't kick it into high gear a bit more often.
This is probably one of the few anime movies I could recommend to just about anybody. It's a great example of the kind of story telling the medium is capable of when it's not constrained by the usual issues that it's known for. Nobody is annoying, nothing is too goofy or cringe or cutesy. There's no insipid love story, pervy nonsense or overly drawn out battle and no unnecessary exposition dumps. It's just a really good animated movie.
- Joined
- May 20, 2004
- Posts
- 8,227
Got the re-release recently for riding bean on bluray.Classic anime all around it makes me wish this had become a full on series.Sure,bean bandit shows up again in gunsmith cats but he's just a side character for that one.The interview with kenichi sononda is a nice added bonus.
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- Aug 28, 2003
- Posts
- 2,431
Ah yes, I think I remember the signatures with babes. Hahaha, that was a long time ago. Just been browsing the forums here again since a few months.