Hopefully we know the drill by the now.

Last threads:
1995 - AotY: Golden Boy
1996 - AotY: Spring & Chaos

1997 was interesting. Similar to '96, there was a LOT of utter schlock to wade through, and I probably gave the same number of 1/10s and 2/10s overall, if not slightly more. But at the same time, I was able to scrounge up a decent amount (relatively speaking) of things worth watching, thanks to 1995 sort of opening the floodgates for more experimental artistry. These don't always turn out great, but they're always better to watch than yet another generic fucking mahou shoujo series, or a piece of shit mecha series.

Here's everything I didn't watch. If I don't watch something, it's either because I couldn't find a stream for it anywhere on the Internet (so it's PROBABLY not worth watching anyway), or because it's part of a larger franchise that I've already given up on. I'm not gonna watch Dragon Ball GT when I still haven't even finished DBZ, you dig?


With those formalities out of the way, let's move onto the list itself.

---

No number, since this is the only item on the entire "list," so calling it "#1" would be redundant. I had two items for 1995 and zero items for 1996, though, so I guess it balances out.

Noiseman Sound Insect is a short film by Kōji Morimoto—the same Kōji Morimoto who helped animate Akira and directed Magnetic Rose, which made my 1995 list. Suffice to say, he's definitely one of my new favorite anime directors, and despite having given Magnetic Rose the runner-up spot on that list under Golden Boy, I've actually been having second thoughts about that, because it's finally beginning to sink in just how talented this man is.

In general, Studio 4°C was killing it in 1997. The same year, Morimoto dropped a twenty-eight minute film called Eikyuu Kazoku (Eternal Family), which I didn't think was quite good enough to put on this list, but its strange combination of ideas from The Matrix and The Truman Show become all the more interesting when you realize that it actually predates both of those films. You also had Katsuhiro Otomo (the Akira guy) dropping some fucking weird shit like Gondora under this studio.


I don't even know what to make of this.

Given the studio's track record of producing these borderline shitpost art films that may not always say something profound, but are still wild, fun, and infectiously creative in their own right, it's very unfortunate that I only discovered Noiseman Sound Insect towards the tail-end of my trek through 1997, especially when it was animated by none other than Masaaki Yuasa (Devilman Crybaby, The Tatami Galaxy), who is my all-time favorite person working in the entire industry.

The story is pretty simple, albeit a little absurd. In the distant future, a mad scientist vies to steal ALL the world's music and then transmogrify it into a crystalline form to reduce all what we can hear to unmusical noise, just to deprive society of that basic pleasure. He creates the titular, triangular, and squeaky-voiced monster, the Noiseman (pictured above), to help enact his designs. The rest of the film follows Noiseman as it runs amok, sucking up music, causing all kinds of commotion, as a group of biker punks try to stop it.

If that doesn't sound interesting to you, don't worry—the story isn't really the primary appeal of this cartoon. Where the short truly strides is in its ability to inject a potent firestorm of sensory input directly into your ears and eyeballs. The colorful and gorgeous imagery combined with animation so crisp and fluid all add up to a visual rollercoaster. I've always been impressed by movies that always have something going on in every frame. On top of this, the hectic and cacophonous soundtrack by Yoko Kanno (of Cowboy Bebop fame) rather perfectly complements the overall theme of the movie, being the relationship between music vs. uncontrolled noise.

The city featured in this short is called Cahmpon, and that's pretty much all we know about it—other than that it's in a state of beautiful decadence. The short fifteen minute runtime lends us no time to ponder questions like "Where are we?" or "How did the world get like this?" which aren't really questions that the film is trying to answer anyway, so I wouldn't even worry about any of that stuff. The mystery and intrigue of the city is what keeps you wondering about it, and if any more information about it was revealed, it wouldn't have been as memorable for me.

Its short runtime also makes it easy to recommend to just about anyone, and though I usually leave just a small clip for you to watch to gauge interest, I see no harm in linking the entire thing here. It certainly left an impression on me, so I hope you'll be able to take something away from it as well.


That would be the end of the thread if I wasn't about to bring up some honorable mentions, and we actually have a pretty respectable number of them coming up—the first of which is very special to me, so let's dive into it.

---

I am ecstatic. This is the most floored I've been after watching an anime since Devilman Crybaby, and for that sort of thing to happen twice in a year for me is unprecedented across all media. This is some good fucking shit.

Before I even begin talking about this movie, I feel like I have to talk about the first time I watched Neon Genesis Evangelion. Or, no—back up—I should probably talk a little bit about what Evangelion is in the first place for the two people who don't know anything about it.

I'll keep it simple: NGE or EVA is the seminal mecha series made by Hideaki Anno in 1995. Part super robot, part psychological thriller, the show was unique for the time, because it deconstructed all the typical tropes you'd find in the prevailing mecha shows of the era. It starts out like a typical anime, and the basic premise itself is probably the least interesting thing about the series. Kids pilot giant robots to fight off giant aliens, sure whatever. It's more about the extremely intense and dark ways in which things begin to fall apart for the characters over the course of the series, the ways it subverts expectations and tired anime tropes, and for all the crazy gut punches it starts throwing towards the third act. The show proceeded to turn the industry on its head, redefining what a lot of people look for in their cartoons (for better or for worse), and is now considered by many to be the most important show of the '90s, if not ever.

I've known about this show for about as long as I've been on the Internet, and it was perhaps the first anime I've ever been exposed to that wasn't Pokémon, Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, or any of the other typical fare of the late '90s. It was through an old (now copyright claimed) video where someone re-edited the opening of Super Smash Bros. Melee to make it look like the OP for NGE, and I remember being very impressed by it.

The video is no more, which is kind of sad, because it's what exposed me to one of the coolest openings for anything that I had ever seen—whatever an "Evangelion" is—and still today, I do consider it to be the greatest anime OP of all time.


But even then, it would still be about ten years until I actually sat down to watch the show.

Just over a year ago, after I begun this whole anime thing, it was finally recommended to me by Ian, who gave me his express permission to shit all over it—making me assume that he hates the show and wanted me to validate him or something. So by the time I finished it, that's exactly what I did. Initially, I genuinely wasn't impressed—so much so that I decided to skip all of the supplemental material, even though I was specifically told not to. I just figured, since Ian wanted me to hate the show anyway, there's no real sense in bothering. I proceeded to exaggerate a lot of what I considered to be some of the show's biggest problems at the time to give him exactly what he wanted.

But it wasn't honest; not 100%, anyway. I was kinda just playing the role of that angry guy who hates anime indiscriminately, when the truth was, I didn't really think the show was as bad as I was making it out to be. I think I originally dropped a 4/10 on it, which is usually my "caution" rating—it's the rating I give to shows that I understand have a lot of good qualities about them, but for whatever reason, just never really clicked with me. In other words, I don't personally like them, but I can easily understand why it's considered good by others.

I wouldn't be surprised if Ian could probably tell that my given thoughts on the show were half-assed and reaching, because it wasn't until later that I found out that he doesn't hate the show at all. It's actually his favorite. I think he said that he only wanted me to shit on it so that he could finesse for himself new ways to enjoy it—which is unfortunate, because it only wound up coloring my perception of the show during my first viewing, causing me to destroy the experience for myself. If I were watching the show for any other reason than looking for reasons to hate it, I probably would've loved it right away. I realize I have a colossal fucking hate boner for anime and all, but I really do prefer to enjoy things, so it always sucks to have your expectations played around with.

I eventually gave the show a rewatch a few months ago while compiling my 1995 list, and I did so with the intention of opening my mind to it a lot more, while trying my best to wipe the initial viewing out from my memory.

Needless to say, it kinda worked.

There's a lot to unpack here. I'm going to avoid being exhaustive, but one of the bigger problems I had with the show at first that I honed in on—the fact that NONE of the characters are likable in any way, especially the main character Shinji—wound up becoming one of my favorite aspects of the story, because it suddenly occurred to me that I was looking at them the wrong way. It wasn't that the characters themselves are inherently unlikable; it's that their character flaws are so readily apparent that it makes me dislike them as people, as if they were real. That's actually a good thing. That's good writing, because it makes them feel real, which in turn causes them to become likable in their unlikableness. It's something that anime never does, and something I've wanted anime to do for ages.

They only become easy targets to criticize when you're looking at the characters from a lens of looking for things to hate, but then, of course, you'd be missing part of the point of the show.

The deconstruction of terrible super robot tropes are also fun and well-executed, and the philosophical themes—which I initially waved off as silly and pretentious nonsense, and nothing more than evidence of Hideaki Anno smelling his own farts—are actually not only incredibly poignant and thoughtful, but extremely relevant to somebody like me, who is not only able to sympathize A LOT with Shinji's general outlook of life, but whose teenage experiences parallel uncannily with his. I gave him a lot of flak for being whiny, for example, but I was a huge fucking whiner as a teenager, too (and in a lot of ways, I still am—just over more "mature" subjects, I guess). I also made fun of the religious symbolism and the general arthouse style of the last half of the show, but I'm someone who normally LOVES that shit, so that was just me reaching once again.

I can definitely own up to being a shithead about these aspects of the show. There are several other misgivings I had about the show that were corrected on my second watch, but I did say I was going to avoid being exhaustive.

The point is, my opinion improved. As a result, I decided to bump the score up to a 6/10, which is my way of saying "I like this," and after watching the Death & Rebirth cut, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't beginning to feel a 7/10 well up within the cockles of my heart. Because at this point, the show totally clicked with me. I'm no longer hesitant to admit that I genuinely and thoroughly enjoy it. It's still not perfect, and there's still several of these little niggling things about it that are holding me back from putting it up there with my all-time favorites—but when it comes to the things that I do love about it? It is an intense, burning love, on par with or stronger than what I feel for my top two.

So, after all that, I finally decided I was ready to watch the movie I've been neglecting to watch all this time: The End of Evangelion. The setup is over—I'm finally going to start talking about this movie now, thanks for bearing with me.

For those of you who aren't in the know about what this movie is, or why it exists, I'll try to wrap it up for you succinctly and without spoiling anything. If I get any of my facts wrong, I'm sure the weebs will be able to correct me.

The original 26-episode series ends on what could potentially be described as an artistically challenging note, and (as far as I'm aware) only really happened because the studio ran out of money and had no hope of creating something more immediately coherent or satisfying. I, for one, thought it was immediately coherent and satisfying, but regardless, fans of the show were not happy with it—and evidently, neither was Hideaki Anno—so with this movie, they intended to give it a "proper" ending, taking an approach that was less "confusing as hell" and more "absolutely fucking insane." It was completed about a year later, and...

Holy fucking shit. I cannot adequately express just how monumental of a mistake skipping this movie was.

This is it. This is the final piece of the puzzle I was looking for. I could stop watching anime RIGHT NOW, because I can now officially point to three different things—Devilman, Texhnolyze, and now this—as being tailor-made for me specifically, and I am so fucking thrilled about it. Where do I even begin? Well, I won't begin with spoilers, so that narrows it down. But I will be have to delve into some spoilers later, so I guess I'll warn you when that happens. Describing this film's appeal without discussing important plot details will be a challenge, but it'll be fun.

So what's the deal with this movie?

There are words in my vocabulary that I try to use sparingly, especially when I review things. The less you use a particular word, the more impact it has when you're finally able to find the right moment to use it. Whatever it is, it just gives the word a greater sense of value, power, meaning, and gravitas. Overuse a word, and it tends to lose all of those things. Among the words I try to avoid using, lest I deteriorate its value, is "beauty."

As many of you know, there's very little in the world that I would consider beautiful. On the contrary, everything is kind of horrible and disgusting to me. That's why I love art, because the power of art is that it represents the capacity for humans to inject meaning into the most dreadful aspects of life, allowing us to safely look upon it from a distance, shape perspectives, learn lessons, develop morals, and ponder. Feel. Experience. Enrich our lives with a small piece of something that we never really could, never really wanted to, or is otherwise too fantastic or absurd to really happen. Therefore, the most beautiful art to me is that which enriches my "soul" the highest degree. Something that makes me feel alive by stimulating the core of my being, or something the Romantics may have called "the sublime." That's beauty, and that's what I'm after when I consume art.


The End of Evangelion is a beautiful film. I'm fairly confident in declaring it Hideaki Anno's masterpiece, even though I haven't seen any of his other works—which I suppose I'll have to start catching up on now.

There comes a point during EVA's run where the basic plot kinda gets thrown out the window, and you realize as a viewer that you're no longer watching an ordinary mecha show. For me, this was practically instantaneous, because I already knew of all the show's intentions going into it. But shit didn't really start to feel like it was going in some weird place until the second half, during which it shifts from being a relatively standard mecha to become a much more heady, disturbing, and philosophical mind trip.

The darkness and tension compounds further and further and FURTHER, and End of Eva is where it finally reaches critical mass. Everything shatters all at once, as loudly and intensely as fucking possible. It is an experience that will rend your soul into a million glistening pieces with its visuals, both animation-wise and imagery-wise, and it will almost certainly make you feel extraordinary discomfort, and, depending on your disposition, existential depression in the same way that Devilman's ending would.

Final thing before I get into spoilers: the best part of all has to be the direction. My mouth was literally agape at some of the things I was seeing, and I'm struggling to think of a time where I've been as engrossed with an anime.

All right, spoiler time. Rather than use tags, I'm going to change the color of the text to red, because I don't want the tags to break my flow. Just don't read the red text if you want to avoid getting spoiled.

Anyone who thought the last two episodes of EVA sucked or were too confusing were definitely shown up in a big way with this movie. It's hard to know what people were expecting in those days, but I like to think they were expecting a relatively fanservice-y movie where everything comes together and resolves itself in a satisfying, if mildly bittersweet fashion. They probably weren't expecting the Third Impact to actually commence, or for it to result in a complete and utter mind fuck where virtually NONE of the characters made it out okay.

Shinji's crumbling mental state is at the forefront of the movie with the infamous first scene, where he's shown having pleasured himself to the naked body of his comatose friend, because he just wants to know what it's like to feel pleasure again. It's incredibly unsettling to watch a character, who we thought was actually starting to mature a little, regress to the absolute nadir of his existence. There's a lot of fucked up and depraved shit in this movie, but that scene will always be the most fucked up part of the entire thing for me, and people continue to meme about it to this day.

Beyond that, the film in general firmly establishes just how fucking psychotic each and every character really is. They all have reasons for it, but none of them are treated as excuses. Part of the film's theme is to scare otherwise weak-willed people into taking responsibility and initiative with their life choices, because in spite of how hard you try to justify your actions, everyone is secretly a self-serving piece of shit on the inside. The film plays with and explores the psychology of this depressing truism, and attempts to find a silver lining, which is ultimately left for the individual to decide for themselves. Life may be hell, people may be shit, but you can still try your best to make things better. Or you can run away; it's your life. But loneliness can be just as harmful to you psychologically as getting hurt by others.

And then there's the Impact itself. The moment the Third Impact finally commences, on top of being a visual feast and a prime example of spectacular filmmaking, is what really helps me cap off my love for this movie, and you can probably guess why if you've seen it already: This is my fucking dream apocalypse. It is everything that I want and everything that we deserve. Everyone in the world dies a relatively peaceful death (except for the ones who died scared or violently). In their final moments, they're embraced by the figment of a person they loved before they "return to nothingness," until the entire world is reduced to nothing more than primordial soup, from which they may return if they so choose. The moment Shinji decides to come back to give life another shot is excellent, because it's not like he's forcing anyone to come back—he gives them the choice, which is precisely how it should be. I've never seen a more properly executed end of the world scenario and I probably never will. You can only imagine how delighted I was.

That about scrapes the surface of how much I appreciated this, I think. I could go on and on.

So now, you might be wondering, "Well, if you love the movie so much, why isn't it on your list? Why is it just an honorable mention?" and I do have several reasons for that. For one thing, it's a movie that essentially requires you to watch 24 episodes of the original series, which is approximately nine hours of content. That's a lot for me to ask people to sit through, and I'm a guy who generally prefers movies to be able to stand up on their own. EoE does not. So if you find yourself in a position where you can't enjoy NGE for whatever reason, then you're probably never going to make it up to this movie, which is a major issue.

Another reason is that I'm trying my hardest not to be biased. As I said, this movie was practically tailor-made for me. It's as if Anno himself knew that I would eventually come across some day. So for me to give it a universal recommendation would be similar to buying you a pair of shoes without any regard for your preferred color, lace type, or even your size. The appeal of the movie is just heavily personalized, and I'm just trying to recognize that. Not everyone is going to enjoy a movie as soul-crushing as this, even if they're willing to watch the entire EVA series, so I'm not going to list something just because I found it so riveting.

If you want to try Eva yourself, and you don't like anime, I would only ask for you to be patient with it. It's not going to be apparent to you why I like the show so much until later, unless you're extremely attentive. Whatever the case may be, you're in for a real trip, so be sure to strap in.

---

Here's the other batch of honorable mentions for '97. I had to put EoE in its own section, because the rest of these kinda pale in comparison to it, but they're still decent enough to try if you're desperate for more recommendations.

Princess Mononoke - Classic Miyazaki movie that failed to leave a lasting impression on me, but everyone else seems to love the shit out of it, so perhaps you will, too. I gave it a second watch while compiling this list, and I did end up enjoying it slightly more, but just not enough to put on the list. Perhaps my mind will change in the future. It's definitely one of the stronger contenders.

Revolutionary Girl Utena - Considered the Eva of the magical girl genre. Though I'm able to appreciate the deconstruction elements, I ultimately just don't care for it as much. Doesn't quite have the same effect on me, and visually, I think it's quite ugly. It's pretty popular, though.

The Dog of Flanders - The movie, not the series. It's decent, albeit very sad. I'm not really sure if you need to watch the series in order to enjoy the film more, but I didn't because it was 52 episodes and made in the '70s. Maybe that was my mistake.

A Chinese Ghost Story - Technically, this shouldn't even count as an anime, as it was made in Hong Kong. It's still listed on MyAnimeList, though, so if they count it, then I suppose I might as well. It comes across as poor man's Disney, but it's still decently entertaining, and it's a fun way to learn a little bit about Chinese mythology.

Pokémon - Gotta shout-out to the first anime I've ever seen. Obviously a huge part of my childhood, the first season is all I would "recommend," but even then, I can't fully recommend it because it's objectively understood to be a substandard show, all things considered. I still think it's fun, though, and I've been planning on making a thread where I review and rank every single Pokémon movie, of which there are twenty (which is why it's been taking awhile).

And finally:

This beer commercial - is awesome.


Don't drink, though.

---

1998 is looking like it's gonna be a pretty exciting year. I'm already seeing tons of stuff that I might like.

except you can only choose two of those things

so, which ones

the one you don't choose will be corrupted into its logical opposite extreme:

if you're not good, you're terrible
if it doesn't make you money, then you'll struggle to survive
if you don't love it, you absolutely hate it

probably only works in a language you'll never understand

how does this make you feel

pretty cool game so far, gotta say

https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/971385073898532865

Tune in 3/8 at 2pm PT for a Nintendo Direct featuring upcoming #NintendoSwitch and Nintendo #3DS games, including new details on #MarioTennis Aces! http://bit.ly/2D8eOEw

prepare for fucking nothing

Anime is the worst thing ever.

But at some point last year, I decided to finally start doing what I had been joking about doing for the past several years: watching every single anime ever created, just to take a steaming dump on the entire industry.

"Wait, if you hate anime, then why are you trying to watch all of it?"

Like bronies and furries, anime fans have this troublesome tendency of being completely unable to comprehend the idea that someone could hate anime. It's very common for them to say things like, "You can't hate anime, because anime isn't a genre, it's a medium! It's like saying you hate movies!" without realizing that, yes, believe it or not, some people do hate movies. Some people do hate music. All of it. The entire medium. They hate it. And you know what? It's perfectly fine if you're that person. Some art forms aren't for everybody. I'm personally not terribly impressed with photography as an art form. You wouldn't call someone closed-minded for not being into sculpture. Some people don't even read literature. It's not that big of a deal.

But to anime fans, it kinda does seem to be a big deal. They refuse to accept it. They'll ask you unrepentantly to justify why you hate anime, and when you give them a few perfectly valid reasons, they'll try to recommend you some shit like Cowboy Bebop, only for the show to end up containing everything you hate about the medium. I've seen it happen time and time again. And then when you tell them that the show sucks, they STILL won't fucking give up. They'll do anything in their power to try to convert you into some disgusting weeaboo. They'll say something like, "Unless you've seen every single anime, you can't say that you hate anime." This is their desperation move. Their final trump card. They say it with this faux confidence, because they know you're not actually crazy enough to try every single Japanese cartoon ever created, so they think you'll have no choice but concede their point.

They didn't count on me, though.

I'm that crazy guy they didn't expect to actually watch every single show, and while I still have quite a ways to go, I'm still well on my way, and I'm not gonna stop because I find this shit incredibly amusing. Imagine the look on some stupid weeb's face, the next time they try to pull that shit on me, and I drop my complete anime list on them. It'll be fucking glorious.

But it's also a little self-servicing, I noticed. And at some point, it became apparent to me that I didn't really have much of an endgame beyond being smug on the Internet. As a result, I thought I'd go ahead and spread some goodness while I'm on this crusade.

While, in the long term, my endgame is to eventually make liking anime a felony punishable by death, my short term goals are much more modest and easily attainable. I'm watching every anime so that nobody else who hates anime ever has to. Someone who hates anime, yet still wants to give one a try for the fuck of it, can come to me with the good promise that I'll be able to recommend you something you might enjoy based on your specified tastes.

What I can't promise is that you'll be guaranteed to enjoy it. As a disclaimer, there may well be nothing at all for you here. You know how weebs like to say there's a show out there for everybody? Sometimes, that's not true. And that's perfectly fine. Great, even. Your taste in media is pure. You are above everyone else who likes anime. Be proud.

That's the important difference between me and a shitty anime fan. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you, a person who already hates anime, to start watching anime. If you've already decided that anime is gay and retarded, you've already passed. You've already gotten that A+. I'm not gonna recommend anything to you. You've already won, and in some ways, I envy you. No anime fan is going to tell you any of this.

But for those of us cursed with the nagging ailment of open-mindedness, however, I'm here to provide you with a list of every single anime that is worth watching from the year 1995. Why that year? Because it's the year I was born, so it felt like a pretty good starting point. From here, I also plan to make a list for 1996, 1997, and so forth, until I've seen absolutely everything that presently exists. At some point, I might start going backwards, too, but I'm not sure when.

Before we begin, it should be noted that I wasn't actually able to watch literally everything ever released in '95, because not every show is available on Internet video streams. Sometimes, the only options are to either buy or download the show, which is something that I'm probably never going to do. Morally speaking, I do not condone piracy, and I realize I'm a big fat hypocrite, but watching illegal streams is the only way for me to feasibly complete this task, and I'm providing free advertising for some of these shows anyway, so maybe it's not such a big deal. The only things I'm really missing out on are shows like Bit the Cupid, and I don't think it's terribly important for me to have seen stuff like that to make this list.

Nonetheless, I put myself through a LOT OF STUPID SHIT to make this list, so I hope you'll appreciate that.

Oh, and one more thing, just to be clear: I rarely watch entire shows. If I think a show is good enough to watch all the way through, then I will. But if I don't like a show by the third episode, I'm most likely going to drop it, which was the case for 95% of the things I watched for the year 1995. Sometimes, I'd even drop a show on the first episode. As such, several of the shows I wound up dropping may very well have gotten much better after those early episodes. I'm just not insane enough to put myself through a 30 or 50-episode series just to wind up disliking it.

My personal philosophy has always been that, if you cannot instantly grab me with that first episode, then your show is fucking garbage regardless of how much better it gets. Is that totally fair? Maybe not, but I don't think anyone can blame me for taking up this philosophy. Maybe some way, when I'm thrown completely off the deep end, I'll start watching entire shows exclusively the moment people start saying "You can't say you hate this show until you've seen the entire thing!" but for my sanity's sake I'm probably just going to ignore comments like that.

On to the list.

---

Yeah, that's right, #2. I'm doing the YourMovieSucks thing, where I put "Top 10" in the title, but the list doesn't actually contain ten items. It doesn't make any sense to make an arbitrary list of ten things to recommend to people if there weren't even ten things worth trying in the entire fucking year. That said, if there were thirty shows worth recommending to you from this year, then this list would've been thirty items long. Unfortunately, in this case, I only found two things that are 100% worth your time, so this list is only going to be two items long.

And they both have asterisks, too, meaning that these are not even universal recommendations. Keep that in mind.

Based on a 1990 manga by Katsuhiro Otomo, Magnetic Rose is actually a short film in a series of three other short films, all put together in an anthology of sorts called Memories. It was directed by Kōji Morimoto (known for his work on The Animatrix) and, perhaps more notably, was written by Satoshi Kon of Paprika, Perfect Blue, and Tokyo Godfathers fame. It's the only short film that I am recommending in the entire anthology, hence the asterisk, for reasons I will go over later.

For those of you who found yourselves enjoying Cowboy Bebop, look no further than Magnetic Rose to find something that may have directly inspired it, at least in terms of setting. Whereas Bebop has always sort of been the go-to recommendation from anime fans as the #1 thing to watch in order to get yourself into anime, Rose predates it by three years and is, in my opinion, a much better thing to watch if that is your stated goal.

Set in deep space about a century into the future, the story follows a small group of astronauts on a mission aboard the freighter Corona to forage around for scraps and other space garbage that they can use or sell. After receiving
a distress signal from an abandoned station, Heintz, our main protagonist, is joined by his partner Miguel to investigate, and without getting into spoilers too early, they end up finding some weird shit.

Tense, low-key, and beautifully animated, Magnetic Rose excels at what a lot of other anime do not—creating a vibe and atmosphere that feels grounded and realistic without sacrificing theme and engagement. Realism is not necessarily a good thing in and of itself, but it works in this film's favor because of how it attempts to earn its pathos, which I think it does. As events unfold, and backstories are revealed, the film's gritty and grounded nature really helps to bring out some of its more emotionally provocative moments, and there's certainly a couple to be had here.

Its themes aren't very subtle, but you can tell it's not exactly trying to be, and it doesn't wind up becoming a huge problem. It plays around with the notion that our memories are simultaneously real and imaginary. Or are they? The things that haunt us from our past may always be with us, but so will our past triumphs. We all wish we could go back to a time in our lives when everything was happier, but if you had the opportunity to recreate such a world, would it be worth it? Courteously, the film doesn't really answer these questions, allowing us to have our own personal views, and the questions are laid out in a satisfyingly artistic fashion, with a lot of cool (if a bit on-the-noes) symbolism.

At a run time of 40 minutes, it's probably not going to make you cry or anything, but there's just enough characterization, and the pacing and overall direction feels so tight and perfect, that you'll probably end up feeling some kind of way as soon as shit starts getting real.

One of my favorite things about the film is how the music, a chilling operatic score composed by Yoko Kanno (who went on to make music for Cowboy Bebop, fittingly enough) is beautifully woven into the plot itself. It's not like other shows, where the music is just there by sheer necessity. This time, it's very purposeful and deliberate, while perhaps paying tribute to 2001: A Space Odyssey at the same time (maybe, maybe not).

I'd like to stress how much I appreciate the realism of these characters, though. The way they interact with not only each other, but also their environment, is meticulously crafted to feel as palpable as could be, and I had a blast looking around for little details that I hadn't caught earlier. There's a scene where a piano is played, and I tried to study whether the specific keys being pressed actually matched up with the tones that a real piano would play, and I might be tone deaf, but I think they actually do match up. It's little details like that that I'm always trying to look out for, because it shows that the director actually cared.

That doesn't mean it's perfect, though. There are certain things that could've been done better. For one, the film's short length doesn't lend much time for some of the other crew members to get any characterization. They get a little bit, but not quite enough for me to feel as though their characters fleshed out as much as they could've or should've been.

There's also a couple of awkward scenes that had me going, "Huh?" Like, there's a part where Miguel gets stuck in his space suit for a second, and the film makes it a point that you see how much he's struggling, but then Heintz is just like "it's okay, just pop it off!" and, you know, I was kind of expecting to see how he would pop it off. But later, the scene just cuts to him safely out of the suit. And I'm like, what, you're not gonna show us how he did that? What was the point of having the scene, then?

I can also see people watching this movie and considering it a little slow, boring, and kinda predictable. I would agree that the film tends to telegraph its punches a little bit, but it honestly didn't affect the overall quality for me. It's really more about the concepts being explored than how the events transpire, and if that's not what you're looking for, then this one probably isn't for you I guess.

Overall, Magnetic Rose is a pretty cool film that I was able to enjoy. It's no masterpiece; I'd give it a 7/10, which is my absolute cutoff point for things being put on any of my lists. I've always had a thing for exploring troubling philosophical messages and themes over some dark and gorgeous visuals that make you think for a little while, and this short falls rather neatly under that description. If it sounds like something you'd enjoy, then I'd check it out.


Oh, and before I forget: in case you were wondering about the other two short films from Memories, Stink Bomb and Cannon Fodder, I am not recommending either of them. They're just not as good. I suppose if you want to have the full Memories experience, you can go ahead and try them out, because there's supposedly a common thread that links all the stories together. One that I personally haven't been able to find for myself, so I don't view it as important to see the other two shorts. But if you do, and you wind up disliking them, don't come crying to me, 'cause I warned ya.

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BEHOLD. The ultimate guilty pleasure show.

Now, if you know anything about my taste in anime, you're probably wondering why the fuck an ecchi anime (AKA softcore porn) is on this list.

The reason is simple: It's the very first anime to ever make me laugh. Out loud. Hysterically. In spite of everything I hate about this fucking show, it's still the funniest anime I've ever seen.

See that double asterisk, though? Yeah, that means it's going to be fucking impossible to recommend this show to almost anyone, but I will try my hardest to explain to you why I'm personally able to look past all the retarded shit that this show has, and just have a good time with it. Okay? Okay.

In a nutshell, I'm not one for perverted sexual humor. I'm just not. If you're going to have a show that is based primarily around that type of humor, it has to be done a certain kind of way. Golden Boy, in my opinion, does it in a way that I'm able to tolerate, but be extremely entertained by.

Based on a manga from 1992, Golden Boy is a short series of six OVAs released throughout the years 1995 and 1996. It follows the story of Kintaro, an unemployed "freeter" (unemployed Japanese guy) and horndog who drops out of college to travel the country in search of odd jobs so he can live life as a free spirit. He's an insufferable pervert, though, and gets horribly distracted by all the beautiful women he meets (and pisses off) along the way. Though he's never able to "score" with any of these women, he does end up winning them over emotionally with his good work ethic and capacity to fix all of the problems that he inevitably causes with his bumbling idiot tendencies.

For the love of GOD, if you're going to watch this show, you need to follow these rules:

1. Watch the dub.
2. No, seriously, watch the fucking dub.
3. Try to come at it with an open mind.
4. Don't take it seriously.
5. Watch the fucking dub.

Kintaro's English voice actor absolutely makes the entire show for me, and I couldn't tell you if the show would be worth watching without it. It's that fucking important. Doug Smith had so much fun shouting all these ridiculous lines in that stupid voice, it's extremely difficult for me not to crack a smile every single time I hear Kintaro speak.

It's not just the voice, though. The over-the-top nature of the show's comedy and pacing is sure to turn a lot of people away from it, but the reason I'm able to tolerate it is because it's clearly self-aware about it. It knows its stupid, it knows its retarded, and it's made all the funnier because of it.

Part of what helps me enjoy the show, too, is when I view it as an exaggerated parody of the male psyche. Kintaro is a hardworking guy with a good heart, but at the same time, all he can think about is sex, because he's a young twenty-something guy straight out of college. He just wants to get laid, but he's aware that there's more to life than just sex. He's not just your average bullshit self-insert fuckhead with NO personality, and who anyone can project themselves onto for the sake of facilitating wish fulfillment—he honestly just comes across as a good guy, only he's cursed with an overactive libido. Dare I say, he's the most complex ecchi protagonist of all time (not that I go out of my way to watch this shit).

In short, the difference between Golden Boy and every other ecchi series is that Golden Boy has characters. It has writing. The situations Kintaro finds himself in are not only hilarious, but are rather well-written for something of this genre. It's self-aware. It's not a cheap glorification of sex. It's lampooning male sexuality. There are times when the fanservice does go a little overboard, which is why I can't give it anything higher than a 7/10, but it's the more intelligent aspects of the show (and Doug Smith's amazing voice work) that kept me watching until the end.

That all being said, if you already hate anime, I can guarantee that you will probably hate this series too. So I'm not gonna recommend it to you. In particular, if your name is Flee, you should avoid this one like the plague. You will get absolutely nothing out of this show. But if sexual humor doesn't bother you at all, and you wanna try something a little bit different that challenges the notion of whether such perverted shows can still be funny, or at least cleverly written, I'd definitely check this one out.

If you end up thinking it's total abject garbage, don't worry. I completely understand and I don't blame you at all.

Sometimes I think back to this show, and all the stuff that happens in it, and I ask myself, "Wait, do I really like this? Do I seriously enjoy this show?" and as embarrassing as it is to say, I can't lie to myself. Here's the bottom line: It's a comedy, and comedies are supposed to make you laugh. And this show made me laugh. So, I guess that means it fulfilled its ultimate purpose, right?

...Boy, this is SO educational.

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And now for a bunch of shows and movies that didn't quite make my list, but are still worth mentioning.

You might call these "honorable mentions."

Neon Genesis Evangelion - Often regarded as the greatest anime of all time. I just think it's okay. When I saw it for the first time, it was only after being essentially goaded by Ian to shit all over it, so I took that as a free pass to basically look for reasons to hate the show, coloring my perception. When I rewatched it with a more objective mindset, however, my opinion of it did indeed increase, but I'm still not totally in love with it. The best thing I can say is that it's an extremely groundbreaking and important show that inspired many of the anime that currently exist today. Does that in itself make it worth watching? I can't really decide that for you. It's a strange case.

Bonobono - Just a good wholesome kid's show with adorable characters and a cozy atmosphere. Maybe check it out if you're still in touch with your inner child, or something, or if you've ever been curious to see what kid's shows are like in Japan.

Romeo and the Black Brothers - Also known as Romeo's Blue Skies, this is a relatively popular World Masterpiece Theater production which is adapted from a famous German children's story called Die schwarzen Brüder. It's decent enough, I suppose, but nothing I would recommend to a non-anime fan.

Whisper of the Heart - It's a Studio Ghibli movie written in part by Hayao Miyazaki, and is one of the studio's lesser known films. I personally wasn't into it, but I think I've given you all the reasons you need to check it out for yourself.

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No, Ghost in the Shell did not make either of the two lists. It's fucking garbage. Sorry.

Here's hoping 1996 isn't as shitty.

i'm going to post one random hot take in this thread per day, of varying lengths and coherence

Digital art can never and will never be as impressive as hand-drawn art. The intimacy of pen on paper, oil on canvas, etc. on top of the additional skills required to master those methods, like knowing how much pressure you have to put on the graphite as you're drawing, or knowing what specific two colors you need to mix in order to make the perfect shade, tint, or hue that you're looking for, among other things, are aspects that will forever be lost on digital art.

In hand-drawn art, making a big enough mistake means your piece is ruined and you have to start from scratch, and people did this for centuries. You also have to pay quite a hefty sum for all the materials required, some of which may not even be available to you. Digital art removes all of these problems, which may be an objectively good thing and all, but as a consequence, art made on a system where you never have to worry about running out of supplies or making any mistakes at all means that digital art cannot ever be truly impressive.

Show me a perfect and evocative self-portrait made with digital software, and I'll be like, "Cool." And then I'll forget about it the next day.

Show me a self-potrait like Jean-Paul Laurens, which was made during a time before any of the cushy technologies we use today were created, and I'll be fucking floored. It's fucking INSANE how people were able to make such realistic pieces with absolutely nothing to make the job easier, except for a mirror.

Talent isn't that cool. There are other factors going into this that I find a lot more interesting. Your art should have me wondering how the fuck you even made it in the first place. A wow factor, a je ne sais quoi. You don't get that with digital art because everybody understands how you were able to make it. You spent many hours on your tablet and pressed "undo" for every error a million times until you had it just right. It certainly takes talent, and a lot of perseverance, but it still doesn't leave me wondering, and that's part of what makes art of this kind beautiful.

Not the most fun thing to think about, I know, but I've actually been thinking about it a lot lately.

Just two people for me: Trent Reznor and Shigeru Miyamoto.

I'm not normally one to get all bent out of shape about celebrity deaths. The last one that affected me in any way was David Bowie, and before that, I hadn't really felt very much at all over any dead famous person's death besides shock.

But Trent Reznor's music has scored my life for as long as I can remember, and has gotten me through so much shit (not that I've "been through" very much shit, but still), and Miyamoto-san is basically responsible for my entire childhood, as well as pretty much everything else that I still enjoy about life, as sad as that sounds.

I put these people on a massive fucking pedestal that I know I probably shouldn't. I've never met them, never will, and I'm not even sure if I'd want to. But their works have had such a significant impact on my life, so I don't think it's completely irrational to be emotionally attached to them in some way.

I can't really think of anybody else. Knock on wood.

so i just got done watching trump's sotu address, which nobody has made a thread about for some reason

and it merely reinforced my genuine and most heartfelt belief that everyone who voted for trump should be tortured in the worst and most horrific ways imaginable for the rest of their lives

that's probably my most radical belief now, even more than the anti-natalism thing

i hate all of you

the following statement has become an increasingly common sentiment spread by white conservatives to white liberals:

"[x minority group] does not need straight white people to get offended for them"

okay

so, at what point does having empathy for other human beings, and a desire to smash evil regardless of whatever or whoever it may be targeting, become a case of being offended "for" said target, and why does that matter/why is that a bad thing

because i'm really confused about this, and find the implications worrying

>probably some shitty mammal

l m a o

SUPER PUNCH-OUT BABY

OH MY GOD THIS GAME HAS HAUNTED ME SINCE CHILDHOOD AND NOW IT'S FUCKING DONE

FUCK YOU NICK BRUISER YOU PIECE OF SHIT

mike tyson is next