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I've watched the original series 5 or 6 times now. The live action was garbage

Alita was great actually even though most of my friends didnt like it

I will still maintain the live Cowboy wasn’t bad, but nearly everything they changed from the anime was a downgrade, so if you haven’t seen the anime the live version is pretty good. It’s kind of like a reverse of OG Fullmetal vs Brotherhood. The OG isnt bad, but everything Brotherhood changed was better.

chaos0xomega wrote:


Personally Bebop has basically ruined all other anime for me, like tauist I struggle watching most other anime (aside from The Big O and older UC era Gundam stuff) and generally just find modern anime to be extremely cringe. I constantly find myself trying to find new anime to watch that are similar to Bebop, and then I just end up watching Bebop instead because nothing out there comes anywhere close to it.

Ah ha! That must be it!

I wondered why I have a hard time getting into anime these days, despite having watched so much of it 20 years ago. Maybe it's not necessarily bad, it's just not as good as Bebop.

The only exception to this seems to be GiTS: SAC... apart from the final episode of the latest installment... what a mess.

Studio Ghibli, Cowboy Beebop, Akira. Nothing else in anime is even half as good.

The problem is anime has changed. I the 80s or so it was generally quite serious and very heavily story driven

Today its gone the cutsey, childish, big boobies angle and its infected a LOT of anime. Plus you've a lot of "kid at school" type setups coupled to "this is an MMO" from the perspective of players (eg Overlord) as opposed to the 80s where it was closer to "this is a DnD adventure" from the perspective of the characters

I think part of it is that you've generations who have grown up with MMO pc games and they are recreating that; another part is it means they can do a slow side scroll of a single drawn image whilst the character monologues about his DPS abilities or something (Overlord is rife with that in the clips I've seen).




IT makes finding serious story driven anime tricky - its out there just harder to find.
eg:
Wolf's Rain, Ergo Proxy, Akira, Bebop, Ghibli films, Ghost in the Shell (films and Stand Alone Complex series*, Full Metal Alchemist, Attack on Titan, Alita (the animation which is far superior to the live action, in my opinion)


Then you've what I consider the halfway which are, to me, annoying. They are predominantly "serious" but then interject supremely childish elements of story and animation: eg
Trigun, the new Hellsing**


*Although Ghost keeps getting soft reboots. The original films; the SAC series and the newer series that I forget the name of are each technically their own timelines. You can draw parallels and spot patterns, but they don't really link up well. EG SAC actually sets up a lot of elements for the original 2 films really well - with the exception that Togusa is a rookie in the films and yet in SAC season 2 he's running the team.

**Which is better animated and covers more story, but at the cost of character development and pacing

 Overread wrote:
The problem is anime has changed. I the 80s or so it was generally quite serious and very heavily story driven

Don’t make me break out the Bender “Oh wait you’re serious” gif. The 80s had its fair share of schlocky stuff, it just doesn’t become as immediately memorable. The perfect example is Bastard, which is actually got a remake here recently. It is Very not serious and full of boobs. Fullmetal Alchemist, 2003, is really good. Good enough they redid it with Brotherhood in 2009 after the manga finished and it’s even better. There’s always tons of schlock with buried gems, you just only remember the buried gems from ages past while the current schlock fresh on your mind can drown out the good stuff.

Yeah "kids at school" anime trope is a bit of a dealbreaker for me. Its easier for me to ignore the completely unrealistic overly mature 16 year old child-soldier protagonists in a lot of anime when I'm not constantly reminded of their age by their presence in a school.

"world is a video game" is also something I have a hard time getting into, it was cool and innovative the first time I watched it, okayish the second time I watched it, but now its just sadly repetitious.

And yes, Ghibli works and Akira are great. I need to give Ghost in the Shell another watch - I've seen it several times but never really paid very much attention to it, but I did enjoy it. I never really "got" Wolfs Rain, it was just kinda there. I've bene intrigued by Attack on Titan, but haven't got around to it yet.

Currently trying to power my way through JoJos Bizarre Adventure, I'm currently about halfway through the Japanese JoJos arc - I feel more like I'm watching an animated manga than I am an actual anime, but I don't hate the series. I don't really like it either, but its nice background noise while I paint minis or whatever and as much as I pretend to roll my eyes at the awful pop-culture puns/references, I do get a kick out of them.

If it’s not Brotherhood, my favorite anime would have to be Gurren Lagann. Yes it’s loud, but it also tells a good story in there. Not sure which of the two would be my absolute favorite, but it’s one of those.

I've only two problems with Attack on Titan

1) The plot moves at the speed of a glacier. Even though I like slower stories, AoT seems to take forever

2) A lot of the not-lead characters appear kinda similar visually and a lot of them come and die fairly quickly. So I find I, more than normal, get confused who is who in the sub-characters.


Wolf's Rain is great, but for some reason mid season they do something like 4 recap episodes which is rather strange because they only recap the story that you've seen and don't go any deeper into the history of the characters they follow. Which I felt was a bit too much even for a catch up period and kinda a waste of so much screen time and a shame that we didn't really learn more about the backstory of characters

Anime covers a huge range of styles and genres. Trying to bundle it under one banner is like trying to Breaking Bad and, IDK the Bachelor are the same because they're both live action. There's definitely hot genres that you might not like (I'll not shed a tear when we're done with Isekai) but they can be worth checking out the best in class for to see if you like.

Bebop is definitely a tough act to follow, having been a classic in its day that's stood the test of time. There are definitely shows worth checking out in its vein though. Monster, season 1 of Psycho Pass, Megalobox all seem like the kind of shows worth giving a shot.

Haven't heard of any of those three, I'll look into them.

Agreed that anime is (theoretically) very broad and that it *should* be inappropriate to lump them under one banner just as it would be to lump live-action together, but I think for many of us who struggle with modern anime the problem is that the prevalance of certain conventions/tropes/structure/styles across a very broad spectrum (I'd go so far as to say an overwhelming majority) of it which makes much of it unapproachable to us or difficult for us to enjoy. Not unlike musical theater, for example - there are many genres within it (horror, comedy, drama, romance, etc.) but some people just don't like musical theater because there are central defining characteristic of the art-form that, well, people just don't like. In much the same way, there are certain characteristics of the art-form of anime, at least as far as the current predominant style is concerned, which some people just don't care for.

On the subject of Live Action Anime Series though…

chaos0xomega wrote:
Haven't heard of any of those three, I'll look into them.

Agreed that anime is (theoretically) very broad and that it *should* be inappropriate to lump them under one banner just as it would be to lump live-action together, but I think for many of us who struggle with modern anime the problem is that the prevalance of certain conventions/tropes/structure/styles across a very broad spectrum (I'd go so far as to say an overwhelming majority) of it which makes much of it unapproachable to us or difficult for us to enjoy. Not unlike musical theater, for example - there are many genres within it (horror, comedy, drama, romance, etc.) but some people just don't like musical theater because there are central defining characteristic of the art-form that, well, people just don't like. In much the same way, there are certain characteristics of the art-form of anime, at least as far as the current predominant style is concerned, which some people just don't care for.

I totally agree. I took a near decade hiatus starting in the mid-2000s just because I was having trouble parsing the good stuff from the popular but kind of trash stuff that came with the surge of kids who grew up with reliable access to anime. One of the things that gave the genre a reputation for quality is just that for the most part you didn't get to see it unless it was the best of the best at one point and when that filter was removed it took a bit for the tools to get in place to help us do the sorting ourselves. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that I don't have to deal with fansubs and the like anymore, just that you can't assume anime has any consistent quality anymore. Definitely worth putting in the effort though. Like any medium high production values and sharp writing can go a long way and I still find it the single best place to find succinct stories told in a reasonable number of episodes that have satisfying conclusions.

Oh, and check out The Great Pretender if you haven't. I think it kind of peaks in its opening arc and the final arc is definitely a huge letdown, but the first arc probably comes as close to capturing the heights of Bebop as anything in the last 20 years and each arc is pretty self contained with its own satisfying conclusion.

Thanks for the recommendation, going on the list.

 AduroT wrote:
I will still maintain the live Cowboy wasn’t bad, but nearly everything they changed from the anime was a downgrade, so if you haven’t seen the anime the live version is pretty good. It’s kind of like a reverse of OG Fullmetal vs Brotherhood. The OG isnt bad, but everything Brotherhood changed was better.

I do wonder what the live action show would have been like if all the Julia/Vicious crap had been cut out (especially that ending...).

IMO the Julia Vicious stuff wasn't the problem. Making Julia something other than Spikes Girlfriend in the Fridge wasn't a problem.

Ed however.... Ed was a damn problem.

Ed was in 3 seconds of the final end credits scene. She was a non-issue.

Julia wasn't a girlfriend in a fridge either.

The thing is Ed was a very accurate Ed. More so than Spike or Vicious in the the show even. Ed’s just a very cringe character and that doesn’t look good when it’s done accurate and not cartoon stylistic.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Ed was in 3 seconds of the final end credits scene. She was a non-issue.

Julia wasn't a girlfriend in a fridge either.

In the cartoon Julia was 100% fridge. She existed just to be Spikes past trauma then show up for the last episodes. She has 0 personality. She has no motivations to speak of. She has no background anyone can point towards. She's Uncle Ben, Thomas and Martha Wayne. She exists solely to motivate Spike.

Giving her something to do besides exist and die in the live action show wasn't a bad change.


Yes, Ed was only in it for 3 seconds. It's the worst 3 seconds of the live action series.

Yeah but the story focuses on Spike and the Bebop crew alone, we don't need to know Julia's history. We just need to know how important she was and is to Spike. That relation is what's key and we only see her for a brief moment in a rather forced situation. Plus by that point we know that Spike's past was far from good even with rose tinted glasses.

I can get on board with developing her more ,but at the same time I feel like developing her more is more eating away at the mystery of Spike's past. Bebop was great in that we got little snippets of the past of each character and from that we have to puzzle together the person who we see in the current times.





Also I just watched that Ed scene on youtube. It's - gods its cringe.
I realise what the problem is though. Ed doesn't move. She's in 1 spot the entire scene and trying to be bouncy and overenergetic, whilst not actually moving off the spot. Then, for some reason, they decided to do a point of view camera that makes the whole scene feel like its someone doing it as a webcast on their webcam at home pretending to act like Ed.

Honestly kinda feels like you need a really good actress to pull off Ed and they just didn't get that.

 Lance845 wrote:
In the cartoon Julia was 100% fridge. She existed just to be Spikes past trauma then show up for the last episodes. She has 0 personality. She has no motivations to speak of. She has no background anyone can point towards. She's Uncle Ben, Thomas and Martha Wayne. She exists solely to motivate Spike.

She's a cipher, at best, until she suddenly comes into focus. She's not motivation, because Spike ran away from that world. It keeps chasing after him.

 Lance845 wrote:
Giving her something to do besides exist and die in the live action show wasn't a bad change.

It was an awful change. Every scene with her and Vicious was torture.

 Lance845 wrote:
Yes, Ed was only in it for 3 seconds. It's the worst 3 seconds of the live action series.

You could have stopped watching as the credits came on and never known it was there. It was a non-issue.

 Overread wrote:
I can get on board with developing her more ,but at the same time I feel like developing her more is more eating away at the mystery of Spike's past.

Exactly! The whole point is that we don't know all of Spike's backstory until the end. We don't know the importance of the relationships until they're basically over (usually fatally). It's a mystery that sits at the fringes of the story, crossing over with the lives of the protagonists in very specific and poignant times. But other than that it is designed to sit in your peripheral vision. You're always aware of it, but it doesn't drown out what's going on.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
I will still maintain the live Cowboy wasn’t bad, but nearly everything they changed from the anime was a downgrade, so if you haven’t seen the anime the live version is pretty good. It’s kind of like a reverse of OG Fullmetal vs Brotherhood. The OG isnt bad, but everything Brotherhood changed was better.

I do wonder what the live action show would have been like if all the Julia/Vicious crap had been cut out (especially that ending...).

Several episodes shorter?

It's not really that doing more with Julia and Vicious is a problem, its that Vicious is just..... terrible in every scene he's given.

 Chillreaper wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:


Personally Bebop has basically ruined all other anime for me, like tauist I struggle watching most other anime (aside from The Big O and older UC era Gundam stuff) and generally just find modern anime to be extremely cringe. I constantly find myself trying to find new anime to watch that are similar to Bebop, and then I just end up watching Bebop instead because nothing out there comes anywhere close to it.

Ah ha! That must be it!

I wondered why I have a hard time getting into anime these days, despite having watched so much of it 20 years ago. Maybe it's not necessarily bad, it's just not as good as Bebop.

The only exception to this seems to be GiTS: SAC... apart from the final episode of the latest installment... what a mess.

I've had the opposite reaction. I watched Bebop a long time ago, but now I've started feeling that if I were to start it today I wouldn't be into it.

Mostly this is because I've come to prefer the long continuing stories rather than the episodic stuff Bebop did that ultimately didn't really come together all that much.

But it is hard to find a cast of characters that I like as much as Bebop.

I dunno, personally I think Bebop found a way to tell what is in effect a long continuing story through episodic stortylling. Almost every episode moves the main central narrative forward in some small way or provides some sort of exposition, backstory, or character development that becomes relevant to the central narrative in the end. The only real exception to that might be "Toys in the Attic" (which is absolute 100% filler but still probably my favorite episode of the series).