No Right Answer: Attack on Attack on Titan

[DeadCoyote]

So the main problem of the anime is translation? No plot holes, no stupid dialogs, no cooking fillers? =\
I gues, then it's not realy a problem of the anime...

Also, "good" anime is something that strongly relates to person's taste. If "good" for you means "good translation", drop it: there's nothing good enough for you. Though, you can google for what company makes famously good translations of anime and manga and watch what they've got.

But since you asked, go watch Gurren Laggan and Azumanga.

 

[Shjade]

So the main problem of the anime is translation? No plot holes, no stupid dialogs, no cooking fillers? =\
I gues, then it's not realy a problem of the anime...

Trust me: Attack on Titan has plenty of other problems.

 

[Casual Shinji]

And yet Attack on Titan has one of the most original and freshed concepts to come out of anime in years. Such a shame they fucked it up after the first 7 episodes.

 

[Cybylt]

No JoJo's recommendations? For shame. I'm dead serious too. This show is fantastic in how it's dumb, crazy, and homoerotic in that way 80's bands were. Three quarters of the cast are named after bands and musicians, it's got ancient mystics who learned to punch sun energy into vampires. On top of that, the current run of it moves at a breakneck speed (seriously it cleared two whole arcs in about ten episodes each) before slowing down a bit when we get to the meat of the series, stands. Stands are the inspiration for Persona, and as the series goes along their powers get more and more ridiculously specific.

eg- First stands have powers like punch really fast and fire. Some of the later ones have the power over rope, and can make metal into balloon animals that gain sentience relative to the animal they're formed after.

On top of all that, it completely lacks the incestuous overtones and moe animu bullshit of your Sword Arts, Log Horizons, and whatever else is crapped out these days because it was written in the 80's, well before anime as an industry concaved into its own ass, and this is the cliffnotes version. Which means it's not going to be 500+ episodes of nothing like everything with the JUMP stamp on it.

Alternatively, Kill la Kill for being a new spin on that badass girl genre that was only around for a year while poking at and ultimately subverting/calling out the creepy fanservice and the general helplessness anime writers tend to put its female characters in to titillate the audience.

Careful Shotty, you might cut yourself on that edge.

 

[Chris Pranger]

Awesome, two ugly brown-haired guys bitching about an anime they could never hope to surpass. Exactly what are your credentials? Did you write, animate and direct an anime that was so vastly superior to AoT that you can stand around an criticize it for the stupidest reasons?

Are you so blinded by hubris that you fail to understand that your biggest complaint is about the dichotomy between the American and Japanese entertainment industry? "It's not a harem anime, it's not about giant mechs or scantily-clad ninjas!"

Seriously, both of you need to shut the fuck up. In your entire review you didn't say a single thing that didn't amount to 'I hate it because it's popular!'

I just love that our greatest takedown begins by pointing out that we're ugly and have brown hair. They're on to us, Dan!

To be more serious, no, I don't believe myself greater than anyone else when it comes to creating something. I enjoyed a lot of Attack on Titan, but I also felt that it was lacking in a lot of areas, namely plot progression, character development, and most importantly treating the audience with respect. The first half of the first season does a pretty great job with Eren, Mikasa, and Armin, has a few nice twists, and introduces an overall really fascinating concept. The second half of the first season attempts to undo all of that by throwing in more questions before stalling for time and then leaving off without answering anything significant. That, plus none of the other characters are given much development until after their important moments, which robs the moments of any weight. That's my take on it though, which isn't meant to be law or anything resembling law.

Again, I don't believe myself above the show, which is why I'm not worried about hurting its popularity or fanbase with a silly video on the Internet. Although your reaction does make me curious just how much power you think we have... Is it our brown hair? It's the brawn hair I bet. Brown hair is very threatening.

 

[Jake Martinez]

Black Lagoon, Baccano, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Gankutsuou: the Count of Monte Cristo, Ouran High School Host Club, MONSTER

But out of that group, Black Lagoon and Monster are absolute must sees. One for the crazy over the top gun fights and the other for the chilling psychological thrills.

Couldn't agree more with the second comment.

I pretty much outgrew Anime a few years ago, but I'll still watch Black Lagoon every now and then. It's fantastic. Also, being very old I have a fondness for this one:

 

[justblues]

I think Dan might like JoJo Bizzzare adventure star crusaders

 

[Ossirian]

Macross Plus.

 

[Borania]

And above all, I'm a fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which has admittedly spoiled me to what a fusion of eastern and western styles can do.

In that case the obvious thing is to recommend the sequel Avatar: the legend of Korra (if you haven't watched it yet that is) It's a totally new story with new characters, and while it does have some issues it still is great and the most recent season was on par with the best of TLA. Also animation quality is a lot better and season 4 is coming in october!

 

[Uriel_Hayabusa]

I knew that Attack on Titan was getting pretty popular even with people outside of the usual Otaku-scene, but you know it's popular when it's got takedown-videos explaining to people that they're wrong for liking it.

 

[infohippie]

Black Lagoon, Baccano, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Gankutsuou: the Count of Monte Cristo, Ouran High School Host Club, MONSTER

But out of that group, Black Lagoon and Monster are absolute must sees. One for the crazy over the top gun fights and the other for the chilling psychological thrills.

Couldn't agree more with the second comment.

I pretty much outgrew Anime a few years ago, but I'll still watch Black Lagoon every now and then. It's fantastic. Also, being very old I have a fondness for this one:

Oh my gosh, Maison Ikkoku! I love that show! I haven't watched it in years, now I need to go see it again. Of course, anything made by Rumiko Takahashi was a masterpiece.

 

[pacifyx]

What a pointless, un-constructive idiotic rant.

You weren't critiquing AoT, you were just ranting.

What on earth does the localisation of the manga got to do with anything? Yes, the Anime adaptation had some horrible pacing issues, that is for sure. But to define it as "terrible" simply because of that? Please give me my 6 minutes back, that was really bad.

Does AoT deserve how well known it is? No. Is it good? Debatable. is it utterly awful, terrible garbage? Na, not really.

There are tons of solid Anime out there in almost every genre, its not exactly hard to find.

And yet Attack on Titan has one of the most original and freshed concepts to come out of anime in years. Such a shame they fucked it up after the first 7 episodes.

Perhaps... if anime to you is basically Naruto or Bleach.

Want something truly fresh and interesting that is recent, try something like Steins Gate, Shinsekai Yori, Ping Pong, Pyscho Pass, Sidonia, Log Horizon etc etc etc.

As for recommendations for mature audiences, I'd go for something like:

Monster
Ghost in the Shell
Steins Gate
Shinsekai Yori
Pyscho Pass

 

[Jake Martinez]

Black Lagoon, Baccano, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Gankutsuou: the Count of Monte Cristo, Ouran High School Host Club, MONSTER

But out of that group, Black Lagoon and Monster are absolute must sees. One for the crazy over the top gun fights and the other for the chilling psychological thrills.

Couldn't agree more with the second comment.

I pretty much outgrew Anime a few years ago, but I'll still watch Black Lagoon every now and then. It's fantastic. Also, being very old I have a fondness for this one:

Spoiler

Oh my gosh, Maison Ikkoku! I love that show! I haven't watched it in years, now I need to go see it again. Of course, anything made by Rumiko Takahashi was a masterpiece.

It still gets me in the feels. So many other popular animes that came after it are just... obviously derivative. Rumiko basically wrote the book on this particular sub-genre. (I think it's mens rom-com oddly enough)

 

[Uriel_Hayabusa]

I don't like country music in general, and I'm aware of this. Various reasons, not going to get into it. Now, I have heard country songs that I do enjoy! But I'm not going to suddenly dive into the world of country music just because I came across a few songs from that style that I liked; they're the exceptions, not the rule.

Recommending anime to someone who has seen and does not like most anime is a fool's errand. I don't mean that in a "he just can't be saved" way, I just mean that, hey, it's not for everyone, and that's cool. You don't like anime, no worries! Not everyone does, and not everyone has to.

I feel the same way. Some people just don't like anime, I've accepted that years ago and realize that ''fighting'' to change their mind about it is pointless. If someone else considers anime garbage it doesn't (nor shouldn't) diminish my enjoyment of it in any way. And I do feel for people who politely say that they're not into anime only to have to deal with overly defensive anime-fans desparate to change their mind.

But since the guys in the video are asking for recommendations that might. Well, I'll give it a shot:

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Haibane Renmei
Sword of the Stranger
Usagi Drop (or ''Bunny Drop'')

 

[pacifyx]

Well, in fairness, that's because the first series did what you SHOULD do with these kinds of writing situations... the manga was a season or two short on material, so instead of destroying the pacing and slowing it to nothing to wait for more books, they hired some writers to just spin some stuff off that had similar pacing.

That is not true in the vast majority of cases. Most anime's that go anime only end up completely butchering the series. FMA it a passable job, but its in the minority.

best idea is either wait till the source is finished before adapting, or waiting a year or 2 for the second season. Going anime only ending is almost NEVER the correct choice lol

 

[infohippie]

Black Lagoon, Baccano, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Gankutsuou: the Count of Monte Cristo, Ouran High School Host Club, MONSTER

But out of that group, Black Lagoon and Monster are absolute must sees. One for the crazy over the top gun fights and the other for the chilling psychological thrills.

Couldn't agree more with the second comment.

I pretty much outgrew Anime a few years ago, but I'll still watch Black Lagoon every now and then. It's fantastic. Also, being very old I have a fondness for this one:

Spoiler

Oh my gosh, Maison Ikkoku! I love that show! I haven't watched it in years, now I need to go see it again. Of course, anything made by Rumiko Takahashi was a masterpiece.

It still gets me in the feels. So many other popular animes that came after it are just... obviously derivative. Rumiko basically wrote the book on this particular sub-genre. (I think it's mens rom-com oddly enough)

And oddly, it is a genre of anime that I still very much love. Yet, I cannot stand the standard Hollywood rom-com.

 

[yeah_so_no]

Black Lagoon, Baccano, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Gankutsuou: the Count of Monte Cristo, Ouran High School Host Club, MONSTER

But out of that group, Black Lagoon and Monster are absolute must sees. One for the crazy over the top gun fights and the other for the chilling psychological thrills.

Definitely have to agree on Gankutsuou and Monster. I'd also suggest Ayakashi (especially the last episode, Bakeneko) and the movie Perfect Blue. Now that movie was a mindscrewer. Apparently, Kon wanted to do it live action, then realized he couldn't do everything he wanted with it that way, so went animated instead.

 

[ExtraDebit]

I saw that Dan watched Fullmetal Alchemist, but that series isn't as good as the other series, fullmetal alchemist brotherhood. It's more loyal to the manga, and the story makes a lot more sense, so it would be a better anime for Dan to watch.

I beg to differ, I felt the original FMA was much better than brotherhood. Somethings that works in manga just doesn't work in anime. FMA was much more mature and a serious tone, brotherhood just tries to be a goofball that doesn't work.

 

[pacifyx]

I beg to differ, I felt the original FMA was much better than brotherhood. Somethings that works in manga just doesn't work in anime. FMA was much more mature and a serious tone, brotherhood just tries to be a goofball that doesn't work.

Well that is a very unusual and rare opinion.

 

[snave]

Okay, so no to Cowboy Bebop... how about Darker than Black or Black Lagoon? Both of those have great dubs and stuff is constantly happening!

Black Lagoon was a pretty unique case though, and comparable to the video's description of games localisation. I daresay that as an exception, it backs up the point made.

The original was horrendous due to an increasing portion of it being voiced in unintelligible, untranslatable, cringe-worthy Engrish as the series progressed. Don't get me wrong, you could still tell the animation was good and there was a story with potential back there somewhere, but that's not enough. Whilst that shit might be watertight for hardcore enthusiast fans, it simply won't hold up for the casual recommendations crowd unless they're up for a solid unintended laugh. So, for all intents and purposes, there was only half a product to begin with, which crippled the fan localised competition (as good as an attempt as they managed, subtitles can't fix bad voice acting), opening up a greater time window (and actual demand) to produce something of above average production value.