Animedragon

Welcome aboard. Have a look around and make yourself at home.

"A Silent Voice" I bought this film because I have a friend who is deaf and I was interested to see how it handled a deaf character. But I have to admit that I wasn't over impressed with the film. I understand why Shoya Ishida set out to make deaf new girl Shoko Nishimya's school life miserable, and I understand that when the teachers step in, the ringleader of the bullies can quickly find themselves being shunned. The story moves on a few years and Shoya is a bit older and trying to see Shoko again but his motives aren't very clearly explained nor are the actions of his former classmates when he and Shoko meet them. I also felt that the film didn't really explain the blue crosses on everyone's faces. Shoko's suicide attempt also seemed to come compleatly out of nowhere, one minute she's happily watching fireworks the next she's going to jump off a balcony and kill herself. Having watched the film twice I couldn't really understand why everyone was saying what a great film it was, what was I missing? Eventually I found a YouTube video about the film and having watched this I watched the film a third time and now agree that it is indeed a good film, but I think a it could have made a better job of explaining Shoya and Shoko's motivations for their actions. In conclusion I think the problem with the film is that it tried to put too big a story into too short a time, it would I think have been much better as a 13 part series where there would have been time to fuly explore and develop Shoya and Shoko's personal circumstances, characters, motivations and interactions with the other characters in the the story. Thinking about it, this film comes across to me as one of those films that attempt to compress a 5 hour TV series into a 90 minute film with the result that some important plot details get omitted. People with "invisible" disabilities like deafness often face an uphill battle in our modern world and Kyoto Animation are to be commended for creating a film to highlight the issues such people face and a daily basis.

I went to anime cons for about 9 years from 2002 onwards, I went for two main reasons. 1. For the video rooms where I had the opportunity to watch a couple of episodes of series I'd heard about but was unlikely to see because they weren't easily available. 2. For the dealer's room where I could get CDs, artbooks, models and badges etc which were generally hard to get anywhere else. Why did I stop going? Three main reasons. 1. Family commitments and other such things. 2. The arrival of international credit card payments made it possible to buy anime merchandise direct from Japan. 3. Towards the end I realised that I was old enough to be the father of many of the other con-goers and I just didn't fit into their culture. Overall, I enjoyed my 9 years as a con-goer I saw some good anime and spent serious money on lots of anime goodies in the dealer's room!!!

I think that in the 80's & 90's series were either a mecha series or a comedy series. Now, I realise that that is a pretty sweeping statement and there were a number of series that weren't mecha or comedy but it seems to me, thinking back at the series that the 80's & 90's series that were being released on VHS when I started watching anime in 1996 were either mecha or comedy. The mecha examples that come most readily to my mind are Macross and Gunbuster. Evangelion broke the standard mold for mecha shows that the others seemed to follow, which was I think a major factor in its poplarity. The comedy series that come most readily to my mind are Ranma 1/2 and Urusei Yatsura. These series are sort of like my anime watching history, and watching them now they all have a definite artwork style that's very different from later series. I think that if I was starting out watching anime now I'd be looking to watch more recent series rather than those 80's & 90's series.

It's cold and wet. The weather man says it will be better tomorrow, but I'm not sure about that, he said it would be nice today!

I think, almost, everyone was a Bubblegum Crisis fan I still like the series and still listen to my BGC soundtrack CDs. Patlabor was good at the time and I quite liked it, but I watched some of it a couple of months back and I don't think it has 'worn' as well as some other shows. I never got into Gundam, I was (and still am) a Macross fan. But like you I have a hard job remembering the shows from the 80s & 90s, I only remembered Armitage III because I saw the DVD at the back of the cupboard and thought I'd give it a watch. Curiously while it was the Sci-Fi shows that really got me into anime I tend more towards the slice of life shows these days.

I watched a bit of 1990's retro Sci-Fi Cyperpunk today in form of Armitage III. A four part OAV series with lots of action, some of it quite violent, but still as good a series as it was when I watched it way back. It's always interesting to see what anime creators in the 1980's & 90's thought the world of the 21st Century would be like.

Yes, and the Gunsmith Cats manga was rather more, shall we say "adult", than the anime version.

Bean Bandit and Rally Vincent. I'd forgotten about them, but now I vaguely remember watching this way back, good fun action show if I remember correctly.

It's bright, sunny and reasonable warm. All good signs after a cold and miserable January & February.

I think what you say is about right, we're never going to be rid of covid but it'll eventually just become another illness that we can catch like flu and we'll probably get yearly vaccinations for it like we do for the flu. I think the infection rates are showing a slight rise in some areas here in the UK, but the figures aren't reported on the TV news much now because the terrible situation in Ukraine has just about wiped every other news story off the bulletins.

"Orange", Your Lie in April ending 2. I finished watching the series two days ago, but Kaori's final letter still echoes in my mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6TFfhYl5WQ

Cautious, very cautious. I've just heard that one of my friends has got covid, a timely reminder that even 2 years on we still have to be careful.

I'm with you on preferring series to movies. My pet dislike in movies are the ones that are just a retelling of the series. I don't think it's possible to compress 5 or 10 hours of a series into a 90 minute movie without cutting out a lot of the context of the story, and what's often worse is that they make changes to the story which can sometimes be fairly major changes. In my view the best movies based on series are the ones that are either sequels or side-stories.

I posted my top 10 anime series list a while back, so here's my top 10 anime movies. 1. Laputa Castle in the Sky. 2. Nausicaa of the valley of the wind. 3. The Place Promised in our Early Days. 4. Your Name. 5. My Neighbour Totoro. 6. Whisper of the Heart. 7. Violet Evergarden- Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll. 8. Voices of a Distant Star. 9. Only Yesterday. 10.Macross: Do You Remember Love?

I watched "When Marnie Was There" today. Another beautiful film from Studio Ghibli with a touching but deceptively simple story.

Hi there and welcome aboard, here's a few movie suggestions for you: Nausicaa of the valley of the wind. Laputa: The Castle in the Sky. The Place Promised in Our Early Days.

I've just finished watching Your Lie in April for the second time and I certainly enjoyed it more the second time round. This is without doubt a very emotional and sad story, especially in the final half dozen episodes. However, it is also a very uplifting story, we see Kaori's determination to enjoy life and achieve her aims and not be defeated even though she knows she is seriously ill and may not have long to live. We have the other pianists Takeshi, Emi and Nagi who are all determined to strive to do their best and of course there's Kosei who with the help of his friends, and Kaori in particular, manages to put the shadow of his mother behind him and move forward and enter the musical world once again. Kaori slipped quietly out of the story without a big emotional farewell scene, but the letter and photograph she left for Kosei had just as much impact. This is definitely a series I will be watching again.

Ai Yori Aoshi. I wouldn't put this among the worst anime I've seen, but I would put it firmly among the most disappointing series I've seen. It starts of with Kaoru, a college student who lives on his own, meeting a pretty girl dressed in a kimono at a Tokyo railway station she's clearly lost and bewildered so he offers to help her find the address she's looking for. It turns out that she's Aoi his childhood friend, and betrothed fiancée, who has left her wealthy family's home to come a live with him. So in the first four episodes the stage is set for an interesting slice-of-life story about two young people living in a small Tokyo apartment against the wishes of the girl's family who are trying to convince her to return home. Then episode five starts, and oh, dear, Kauru's former girlfriends and female acquaintances start arriving on the scene and BAM the series has plunged into harem anime territory. I have this idea that there may have been some sort of disagreement among the production team with this series because the episodes swing back and forth between being a harem show and a serious slice of life show about two young people's relationship and as a result fails at being either. There was a second series, I saw the first two episodes at an animecon which convinced me not to bother with it.

I'm sorry, but I have to take a dim view of killing dragons.

It's certainly up there with the best soundtracks. Yoko Kanno created some excellent music.

Now that's one excellent crazy harem series. Often copied, but never bettered.

Thanks for your view on the movie. Next time I watch the series I'll give the movie another chance. Watching it a second time and straight after the TV series might change my opinion of it. It wouldn't be unknown for me to enjoy a film or TV series more second time round.

Madoka Magica : The Movie : Rebellion. So what was all that about? It started well enough but was quickly into the surreal psychedelic visuals that were the trademark of the TV series. Sadly amongst all this psychedelic surrealism the production team seem to have lost sight of the fact that a movie needs those things called "plot" and "storyline", yes, there's some impressive set-pieces but a collection of set-pieces, however good they are, strung together with a few vague linking scenes does not make a movie. Considering how good the TV series was I was expecting a decent storyline from the movie.

Just watched "Violet Evergarden - Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll". What can I say about this film? ...... How about... Kyoto Animation have done it again! This is an amazingly good film; a simple but beautiful story, absolutely stunning visuals and a fantastic soundtrack. The brief synopsis on the back of the disk package sells this film short, the film was far, far better than I was led to believe and easily the best film I've seen this year. I'll definitely be watching this again.