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Yes, Pips I realize the author does not endorse the behaviour and the characters acting in disagreeable ways makes for a good soaper. I think the soapy action is why I like Hot Gimmick although I don't want to.

I have never heard of Flag or Yugo the Negotiator. I have realized though that limited animation does not have to be a horrible thing (I used to think that). In fact sometimes story and acting has to be good to cover for it. Speaking of which Revolutionary Girl Utena which had limited animation, but good story and really good Japanese voice acting.

*Crosspossted from HOF*
I cracked under pressure as I am stressed about the possibility of losing funding for the upcoming semester. I have watched up to ep 26 of Revolutionary Girl Utena (on a teeny tiny netbook screen). It's some really weird messed up stuff, but I like it, it is not a typical shoujo at all.

Where the heck do they get these plots from? Also I wanna know why the heck Anthy rolls up her hair in this awful frumpy hairdo. Gah!!! Also seeing it I totally feel the 90's vibe. (The 90's was when I was first exposed to anime.) I even recognized the bishies and the creepy quasi sexuality. Also crazy hair colours everywhere you look (pink, purple, green, red and different shades of blue). I do like the shadow puppet girls, although they are kind of weird.

Also I realize now, that current anime does not use repeat footage, since Utena is a good show, but they do use some repeat stock footage (like Utena going up stairs). They even repeat a speech (about a chick and an egg, a speech which they make fun of later on).

The plot, is difficult to explain, but basically, Utena when she was little, her parents died and a prince showed up and made her feel better and gave her a ring (with a rose seal). Utena was so impressed with him, she wants to become a prince herself. When she is in high school, she ends up challenging somone to a duel, which isn't allowed, but he notices her ring (from that prince), which means she is Duelist (this is news for Utena). The duelists fight to win possession of the Rose Bride and the plot thickens from there.

So far I would totally recomend it and I notice that when I watch older anime it makes me appreciate the new stuff. (Just comparing spinning roses in Utena and Ouran high school host club shows a big difference.)

(I now do not confuse Neon Genesis Evangelion and Revolutionary Girl Utena like I used to. )

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Itoshiki Sensei from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Avatar by: sparklessence

"There is no such thing as coincidence in this world, only hitsuzen." - Yuko Ichihara and Kimihiro Watanuki - xxxHolic

"I'm modest, I'll keep my knickers on and die!" - My sister Grace commenting on Bear Gryllis on an episode of Oprah

I don't mind the 'repeat' footage in Utena...To be honest, I'd prefer it in some cases, as all it means is that the animators have to do it well once, rather than doing it over and over again and ruining it towards the end. (There are plenty of examples from Bleach that I can cite here)

But to each their own, indeed.

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How strange it is to be anything at all

Dawn - the thing with Kaien. D: FAIL ANIME, FAIL.

Yeah, Utena's pretty great. "Kashira, kashira? Gozonji kashira?" I love the angular character designs, the over-the-top music, and above all, the symbolism, and the cleverness inherent in the storytelling. I guess that much at least it does have in common with NGE? If you haven't watched that one yet, you should. It's pretty formative, as a viewer, and influential, as an anime.

A lot of Kuroshitsuji love going down at my animesoc and at home at the moment. Considering trying to get the two groups together next summer for some con or another (the president as Pluto, the secretary as Ciel, the Welsh translator as Sebastian, my girlfriend as Grell, and myself as the Undertaker) which would be hirarious, to say the least. NO SPOILERS PLEASE THOUGH because I'm still a few episodes from the end.

It'd be hard to pull off the thing I was wanting to do with my hair though, if I left it that late. I've got a white wig, which is a bit too short, but I thought I could spray my hair grey, and layer the two pretty effectively. But I'm planning to cut off all my hair in April, to cosplay Ono Yuusuke, for a group cosplay of Antique Bakery. (WHICH I REC MOST HEARTILY). I have already bought a pair of leather trousers. The group play would be awesome (it's a shame we don't have a fourth girl, to play Eiji, but you can't have everything. I suppose maybe we could get K's boyfriend to do it). You've got me, who IRL is pretty much a Gay Of Demonic Charm, seeing as I've seduced my straight best friend and stayed in a functional relationship for the last three years, and I also have the natural red hair and pale skin. Then there's the straight best girlfriend, who'll be Tachibana, and she is the smallest, the grouchiest, and the sharpest. She naturally has floppy psuedo-fluffy brown hair, and she's going to spray a bit of grey over it, I think. Wonder if she'll let me give her a horrible paedophile beard with latex and fake hair? And we have a perfect Chikage. Our best friend, K., is taller and broader than either of us, by far, and has the naturally confused yet good-natured demeanour which defines Chi.

I am SO looking forward to this one.

*~Pips~*

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Avatar is a male me, drawn by a very close friend. Just don't ask why.

There are quite a few classic animes I have never seen. I have never seen Neon Genesis Evangelion, and I just finished marathoning Revolutionary Girl Utena. Which I must have downloaded ages ago and just decided to give it a go now.
Some of my comments, spoiler
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(The creepy quasi sexuality is now freakin creepy overt sexuality, with incest no less!!! Why do the Japanese like the incest!!! Not to mention most of the characters are extremely under-age!!! In the later half of the series it gets so sexually charged and disturbing. The lead is freaking 14 years -old!! Jury is like in grade 10!!! She looks almost 30!!! The art for the movie (which I have heard is pretty bad, so I am not going to watch it), seems even more overtly sexual to the point where everyone looks slutted up. Many of these these characters are in middle school!!! Gah!! ) OK now that that rant is over, other comments.
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After being quite confused (and frustrated) by the ending, I did some reading (on TV tropes), and some thinking, and I do understand a little bit of the symbolism now.

In general I am a very literal person and symbolism usually goes over my head, so if I have to interpret symbolism to understand stuff (like the ending of an anime), I usually get frustrated, confused and dissapointed. (The whole reason I marathoned the show was to avoid those feelings!!)

I do understand now that it is about deconstructing fairy tales, and I think there is some femininsm in there and I did understand that during the show. The stuff I did understand were quite interesting commentaries on fairy tales. Makes me wonder why people tell their children storie like that. Also RGU is in the same vein as Shrek!! *giggle*
Most of the other stuff I am really lost. SPOILER
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(Although I do think Anthy is an evil character but also a victim deserving of some sympathy. (The shining glasses/candle scenes I did not notice certain things until it was pointed out, and it majorly creeped me out. I still do not know what the candles symbolize though ) )


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I did realize the shadow play girls give a simplified version of the episode . I think I will pay more attention to them, when I re-watch the show, since I have heard it's very good on the re-watch. (I love shows like that.)
I think though that befoe I rewatch the show I need to get over how sexually charged the series is and how freaking disturbing some of the characters truly are. (Also I need to get some assistance with the symbolism, the whole cutting the rose off the duelists symbolism was totally lost on me, but I get it now though.)

Thanks to TV tropes I now know what a shadow archetype is!!

So yeah from the rant above I think I need some help understanding some stuff. Going back to Neon Genesis Evangelion, I heard that the symbolism drove people nuts and some stuff simply does not make sense and was not worth analyzing. Considering my track record with overly symbolic stuff, I had actually avoided NGE and had I known about the symbolism and creepyness of RGU I proabably would have avoided it too. (This is why I majored in sciences rather then arts.)

I have not seen Antique Bakery, sometimes I wonder if I am defective for being a girl into anime who just is not into yaoi.

For Kurostuji, I am at episode 15 so I am no where near the end. Are you at the new season Pips? I have not heard anything about it yet.

Dawn, I guess reusing footage has it's pluses and minues.

EDIT to add spoiler space since hiding spoilers isn't working well.

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Itoshiki Sensei from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Avatar by: sparklessence

"There is no such thing as coincidence in this world, only hitsuzen." - Yuko Ichihara and Kimihiro Watanuki - xxxHolic

"I'm modest, I'll keep my knickers on and die!" - My sister Grace commenting on Bear Gryllis on an episode of Oprah

I've been meaning to watch/read Kuro (I can never remember how to spell it) but someone I know via LiveJournal is in to it and I find that person so annoying that despite all the other normal fans of it I know, I'm avoiding it. If I had met this person before I got into Bleach and decided I liked Gin, I would hate Gin now.

I don't own RGU, or have it downloaded, though it's on my list. One of my friends has it though, and almost every time I visit her we end up watching random episodes. That means I'm not sure I've actually seen the whole series, but, I'm relatively sure I've seen most of it.

Don't ever watch the movie though. Seriously.

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How strange it is to be anything at all

I would say give Kuroshituji a try forget if someone else is into it. I found I liked it although initially I was quite ambivalent about it. (I never know how to spell the shows name either. I think I will go by the english translation from now on. Black Butler.)

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Itoshiki Sensei from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Avatar by: sparklessence

"There is no such thing as coincidence in this world, only hitsuzen." - Yuko Ichihara and Kimihiro Watanuki - xxxHolic

"I'm modest, I'll keep my knickers on and die!" - My sister Grace commenting on Bear Gryllis on an episode of Oprah

Kuroshitsuji isn't too hard for me - speaking as a fan of Utawarerumono. (And I'm somewhere around fifteen too - I've seen a few odd episodes as well, thanks to being late for animesoc screenings).

Regarding Utena, I guess... I remember my teenage years. (Well, they only ended last year). And I was thinking about sex or trying to have it pretty much the whole time. So maybe the characters come off as a little overly mature (especially when you consider that some of them are only a year older than Ciel from Kuroshitsuji) but it never really squicked me. And incest is just another one of those things that I know basically isn't a good idea, but doesn't upset me. Anime just likes to go there generally, I think. Dom/sub, age gap, teacher/student... it's interesting to me, and I do like the fact that it's often well handled.

I'm looking forward to watching the movie.

And Antique? I can't remember whether I've said this already, but the first episode (the manga has a different chronology) is pretty much GAYGAYGAYGAYGAY and I thought it was exploitative and mildly irritating, as well as undercharacterised (like I find most yaoi and shounen-ai/BL). But then I watched the rest.

The (Korean) film trailer gives a fairly accurate impression of the feel of the series. (I loved the film. Somewhere between Amelie and the newer Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for me).



The trailer includes pretty much every gay kiss (attempted or otherwise) in the film, ftr. So... gay interest, but basically not a gay film. Or manga, for that matter. Ono's status as The Gay Of Demonic Charm is a plot point, and not just titilation (it's pretty depressing, to be honest).

Anyway. Yeah. Everyone should watch the anime, read the manga, or watch the film.

*~Pips~*

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Avatar is a male me, drawn by a very close friend. Just don't ask why.

I did not know they made a live action Antique Bakery. THat trailer actually cheered me up a little.

For the overt sexuality stuff in Utena, I understand teenagers wanting to have it, but actually doing anything with adults in posistions of power is what gets to me. If it was between the teenagers once they were over the age of 15 I am fine, but it's age gaps and incest that get me. ( I can't even watch romatic scenes with Vincent Kartheiser in Mad Men and I am sure he's in his 20's, he just looks so much younger then everyone else, ugh!! I just checked wikipedia and he's actually a few months older then me!!! Oh goodness!!)

About the Utena movie, I have been warned not to watch it. I have heard it's really really bad.

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Itoshiki Sensei from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Avatar by: sparklessence

"There is no such thing as coincidence in this world, only hitsuzen." - Yuko Ichihara and Kimihiro Watanuki - xxxHolic

"I'm modest, I'll keep my knickers on and die!" - My sister Grace commenting on Bear Gryllis on an episode of Oprah

Eh, I guess I was thinking of the ships between characters who were sensibly close in age. I know all the stuff with a certain guy is wrong, but I think that's pretty much the point. It's to do with his archetype, don't you think? And also, Really 900 Years Old always makes ships weirder.

*~Pips~*

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Avatar is a male me, drawn by a very close friend. Just don't ask why.

Both anime clubs I am in, had a screening night last week, so I was treated to quite a bit of anime. Also, I think feeling the audience vibe made me feel better.

First I saw 2 shows from the new season. Only one ep is out of each.
Baka to test to shoukanjuu (Idiots and tests and summoning wars) is hilarious. People were doubled over in the aisles laughing so hard. . It is very funny and if it is better then this first ep, then it may be the hit of the season. The main thing is, don't write it off and quit watching after the first 10 minutes (I almost left, so glad I did not). I showed it to my second anime club and one guy asked me what show it was, since it was "awesome". *giggle* Baka to... is about class F, the kids who did badly on their entrance exams and are trying to get ahead in school. I would go as far as recommending downloading it as soon as you can and watching it. (It's only one ep!!)

Sora No Woto, the art ad music impressed me a great deal, (especially when they used art inspired by Gustav Klimt for a certain segment of the episode). The characters and the story though, I give a ...meh (Especially the girl who sighs because she is constantly in awe of everything. That is OK to in a show like Kobato since that character is not from the world that we are familiar with. But this chick is no other-worldly creature, so she just looks stupid.*shakes head* ). It's a European setting of a cliff-side town in decline after a series of wars and some girls have to run an outpost and play the bugle. Right now I am afraid it's going to be some kind of post war K-On!, but the music and art is wonderful and the only reason I will watch the first 5 eps. ( For most shows I watch I will watch the first 5 eps before I give up on it entirely.) In fact after the screenings I spent 2 hours reading on Klimt at home. Here is hoping the character and story gets better.

Pips would you know of a good place to download the live action Antique Bakery?

Since this post is long I will post about the other anime night in another post.

EDIT: Because I suck at typing

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Itoshiki Sensei from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Avatar by: sparklessence

"There is no such thing as coincidence in this world, only hitsuzen." - Yuko Ichihara and Kimihiro Watanuki - xxxHolic

"I'm modest, I'll keep my knickers on and die!" - My sister Grace commenting on Bear Gryllis on an episode of Oprah

The Japanese version? Haven't watched it. They made Ono straight. That... quite categorically makes him not Ono. Don't know about the Korean (film) - I bought a pirate copy from eBay, because it seemed like the best way to get subs and a version which would play on TV and also a pretty box.

And now I am going to just post this instead of considering anything else to add to it, because my girlfriend left my house to walk home in the snow a considerable time ago, and has probably forgotten to text me to say she got back okay, and I DO NOT LIKE THIS and am going to walk to her house and back to check that she hasn't fallen in a ditch and died.

ETA: She's fine. I'm going to bed. And I'm almost certain you were talking about the Korean version, in retrospect.

*~Pips~*

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Avatar is a male me, drawn by a very close friend. Just don't ask why.

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Itoshiki Sensei from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Avatar by: sparklessence

"There is no such thing as coincidence in this world, only hitsuzen." - Yuko Ichihara and Kimihiro Watanuki - xxxHolic

"I'm modest, I'll keep my knickers on and die!" - My sister Grace commenting on Bear Gryllis on an episode of Oprah

She told me I freaked her dad the hell out, and never to do that again.

Vic + Hetalia = IWILLKILLAGAIN.

*~Pips~*

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Avatar is a male me, drawn by a very close friend. Just don't ask why.

I joined!!!! That guy ruined Ouran High School Host club.
Never again.

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Itoshiki Sensei from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Avatar by: sparklessence

"There is no such thing as coincidence in this world, only hitsuzen." - Yuko Ichihara and Kimihiro Watanuki - xxxHolic

"I'm modest, I'll keep my knickers on and die!" - My sister Grace commenting on Bear Gryllis on an episode of Oprah

I haven't watched the dub, but I find it hard to believe that they cast a homophobe as Tamaki.

By the way, are you watching Hetalia? It might be about anthropomorphic personifications of the world's nations (Canada is adorable, but due to the nature of his character, doesn't show up much...) but there is SO MUCH INTENTIONAL GAY. Sweden and Finland have a puppy together. Her name is Hanatamago. France, when in financial difficulty, tried to get the UK to enter a marriage of convenience with him. Poland is officially gay. (How can you be sure about an entire country? I just figured they were all bi, except Hungary. ) And Italy's dependence on Germany? LET'S NOT GOT THERE.

It's not like they've announced a cast list yet, but there are hundreds of fucking characters, and they put Vic in everything. I can imagine him being cast as the USA, or as Italy. I guess that'd mean Canada too, if he was the USA - in Japanese they share a seiyuu. This is deliberate.

(PLEASE don't let him be the UK. I might not be a patriot, but... I have my pride. )

ETA: HAHAHA my friends are nerds. Now you're in, Knut's in, Alys is in, Charlotte's in...

*~Pips~*

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Avatar is a male me, drawn by a very close friend. Just don't ask why.

*butts in*

I'm pretty new in this area/field of expertise But... I thought... let's give it a go.

I used to watch a lot of anime when I was in elementary school, because they were the only decent cartoons we could get. Uusually they were airing on Italian or German channels, which meant that I also caught my first glimpses of those languages from there. Then the first airing of Sailor Moon on a Romanian channel happened, and I was hooked, mesmerized; I watched it; I watched the re-run; I started collecting stuff, and my first encounter with the internet happened while looking for SM pictures . Anyway, you can imagine the level of obsession!

Then I think I was not-quite-following Milla Superstar?

Anyway, I recently resumed my watching of anime, mainly b/c I plan to start learning Japanese, and this is an easy way to learn new words, when you have decent subtitles et al. So I watched Revolutionary Girl Utena and Claymore recently, and I'd love to share my thoughts, if any of you has watched them as well?

I'm currently watching Cardcaptor Sakura, which is quite funny and light and sweet and all, but has a looot of episodes.

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I saw Revolutionary girl Utena last month!! Share away!!!!!

(If there are any obvious spoilers put them in white)

I consider myself fairly new to anime myself. (The girls on this thread got me into Bleach).

I have not seen Claymore since the manga art I find very unappealing.

I saw the second episode of Baka to test to shoukanjuu and it was hilarious, again. Sora no Woto, it's still meh, although it seems as if joining the military is a social system for people with no parents. They also still keep the themes of Gustav Klimt (which is quite pretty).

I have seen the first 2 eps of Durarara! The verdict is still out for me. It has the same type of opening sequence as Baccano!. Verdict is still out.

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Itoshiki Sensei from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Avatar by: sparklessence

"There is no such thing as coincidence in this world, only hitsuzen." - Yuko Ichihara and Kimihiro Watanuki - xxxHolic

"I'm modest, I'll keep my knickers on and die!" - My sister Grace commenting on Bear Gryllis on an episode of Oprah

Baccano! is epic win, and gets better every time I rewatch it. Never heard of Sora to Woto, and both Baka to Test to Shoukanju and Durarara! I only know of very vaguely. What are they all about?

I lost my hard drive in December, so I've lost *quite a lot* (strained tone) of anime. I'm particularly going to miss every fucking episode of Bleach, subbed and raw... I'm also really going to miss a few things which would be even harder to replace. I had a dub of Castle of Cagliostro which this Polish dude gave me, and I haven't seen him since - and it's not the regular dub. Very strange!

We watched Vexille at animesoc last night. It was much better than I was expecting it to be! It had just enough of a plot, you know?

Anyway, NEE, to answer your questions, I adore Utena, and I think it's very underrated by modern fans. I'm actually doing my dissertation on The Rose of Versailles, an older show which influenced it heavily. I've only seen one episode of Claymore. I liked it well enough until I realised that the only thing I hadn't really seen before was the gender reversal of two otherwise fairly common character types, and then I felt jaded and old and a bit of a bastard, to be honest.

I really want to read the manga for CCS. I'm quite a fan of Tsubasa - have you heard of it? I like CLAMP a lot in general (though god knows they've plenty of flaws) so finding out the real basis for one of my favourite of their works would be really interesting to me.

ETA: Wow. Just going over this last page, and... can you tell I was REALLY worried about my girlfriend that night?

*~Pips~*

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Avatar is a male me, drawn by a very close friend. Just don't ask why.

Alright, so.

@Pip: How could I possibly forget The Rose of Versailles?! I know it under the name of Lady Oscar, and I was actually planning a rewatch quite soon! I could see a lot of similarities in the way both anime are drawn, not to mention the whole central idea of the subgender . Also, I hear there's a guy who worked on Sailor Moon and then did parts of Utena; his influence I could see mostly in the music (gorgeous, must be said) and in the darker themes eployed.

So yes, to both you and Wilma, discussion on Utena should be fun!

But how come you can write your dissertation on an anime show? I find that to be so cool!
(alright, I have a BA in Translation Studies and wrote my dissertation on football, but still)

@ Wilma and Pip: Claymore was tricky for me. I mean, there's a bit too much gore within it for my taste. Dosed violence with a point might work, but loads of it without any specific aim isn't too much fun. I think I kept watching for the pretty - I really liked the style; plus, there were swords, and pretty character names/nicknames. Sometimes I do stuff for weird reasons

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Well, I'm an English Literature student, and I'm writing 8000 words on the idea of gender as performance. I'm comparing and contrasting Oscar with Stephen from an older novel, The Well of Lonliness, who I think is generally portrayed as a very tragic figure. OH WOE IS ME FOR I AM A LESBIAN. The idea originally was that I was going to be referencing the manga, but it occurs to me that I can only find about five chapters in English, so, er. It should still be okay, because even if I'm referencing from the anime, the manga which it seems to be pretty closely based on exists in the litereary world... I mean, I still think it would be valid to say that the original author was influenced by certain ideas and so forth.

Have you ever heard the Lariene cover of Bara wa Utsukushiku Chiru?

*~Pips~*

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Avatar is a male me, drawn by a very close friend. Just don't ask why.