However, by the same token, would you only watch the newest of the new in all video media simply because of improvement in modern techniques? Are you not able to appreciate many older works despite the limitations under which they were created?
The difference with live-action is that a great actor can shine even in a low-budget movie.
And to be clear, I'm not saying that all low budget animation is bad. The measure I'm using is the artistic value. It is possible to have something with a low budget be very artistic. It's just not often the case.
That said, most animation, like most movies is cruddy and bad and cheap.
That really was the main problem that I had. I liked Ghost in the Shell. However, I found even Neon Genesis Evangelion to have painfully cheap animation. I just can't sit through that stuff. I don't know if you do or not, but if you have even a spark of interest in the story of Evangelion, you might consider watching the new Rebuild of Evangelion movies that are coming out. The first one that's been put out is essentially almost exactly the same as the first six episodes of the TV series (minus a few obvious things), only it's been re-animated with theatrical quality animation and the story has been tightened up and polished. The second one is due out sometime this year, and there are a third and fourth coming as well that will eventually cover the rest of the story and also give it a new ending.
So I guess there are a couple of exceptions to my general statement. The problem for me is that the exceptions are few and far between.
I guess with that logic, I agree with you 100%. Cause really, how many anime series are there? According to ANN's encyclopedia, 2861 (source: worst rated, last on the list is 2861). I like probably less than 100 anime series and movies, combined. Thus, the % of anime I like is ~3.5%. That's really low. On the other hand, I also probably like around 100+ live action movies (if that, probably a large overestimation). That's more than anime. On the other hand, the amount of live action movies trumps anime by a lot, so I'd assume my percentage there is under 1%.
Therefore, making a statement that you only like a few anime is kinda nil, cause most people only like a small % of anime.
Therefore, making a statement that you only like a few anime is kinda nil, cause most people only like a small % of anime.
It's true for everything. Pick any artistic medium, and you will find that a very small percentage of works in that medium are actually any good. 99% of everything is crap. Anime, video games, etc. are no exception.
Also, Kilarney, have you seen the Akira movie or read the Akira manga?
Oh yeah, regarding Akira...I liked the first half of the movie, then it got really weird and pretty dumb. I got volume 1 of the manga, though, so we'll see how it goes.
Oh yeah, regarding Akira...I liked the first half of the movie, then it got really weird and pretty dumb. I got volume 1 of the manga, though, so we'll see how it goes.
That collection of Manga is a beast, and last time I checked the books weren't cheap - good luck if you start to really like it
Oh yeah, regarding Akira...I liked the first half of the movie, then it got really weird and pretty dumb. I got volume 1 of the manga, though, so we'll see how it goes.
That collection of Manga is a beast, and last time I checked the books weren't cheap - good luck if you start to really like it
Yeah, it's totally bullshit. Plus, price aside, good luck finding half of the volumes...
Even if I do like the first volume, I'm just gonna get the scanlations for the rest. $25 for 300 pages is totally BS when I paid $25 for Bone, which was 1300 pages.
$25 for 300 pages is totally BS when I paid $25 for Bone, which was 1300 pages.
That giant Bone collection is a little atypical like that.
Not exactly. Tekkonkinkreet. 600 pages, $30 MSRP, I got it for around $15. Battle Royale ultimate edition mangas, 650ish pages, $16 on amazon. Sgt. Frog vol 1-3 omnibus collection: 550 pages, $12 msrp, can be got for less if you look around the net. xxxholic and tsubasa vol 1-3 collections: ~600 pages, $13 (seen them at a Barnes and Noble once, haven't seen em on Amazon....not sure how legit they are). Anything from the Vizbig line: ~600 pages, $12 on Amazon.
Thus, for most of those, you're paying for half of what the akira manga costs, and you're getting around double the pages. You can call me on "quality over quantity", but Vagabond (vizbig in sept.), Rurouni Kenshin, and Tekkonkinkreet are all great manga. I haven't read Sgt. Frog or Battle Royale, but I've also heard good things about those.
Thus, Dark Horse can go fuck themselves before I pay $25 for another 300 pages of manga, unless it's in full color.
Not exactly. Tekkonkinkreet. 600 pages, $30 MSRP, I got it for around $15. Battle Royale ultimate edition mangas, 650ish pages, $16 on amazon. Sgt. Frog vol 1-3 omnibus collection: 550 pages, $12 msrp, can be got for less if you look around the net. xxxholic and tsubasa vol 1-3 collections: ~600 pages, $13 (seen them at a Barnes and Noble once, haven't seen em on Amazon....not sure how legit they are). Anything from the Vizbig line: ~600 pages, $12 on Amazon.
None of those are quite $25 for 1300 pages. Also, you quote the retail price for the Akira books, but the discount price for most of these. You can generally get the Akira books for under $20. Additionally, all of them are over 300 pages -- one of them is 440. So yeah, it's more expensive, but it's not nearly as bad as you make it sound.
I also think that judging value by page count is flawed. That's like judging the value of a movie by its running time.
Do the math... 1300 pages for $25 vs. 600 pages for $12. Double 600 and you get 1200, and double $12 and you get $24. So yes, it is quite close to $25 for 1300 pages. Thus, only Tekkonkinkreet and Battle Royale don't stand up vs. Bone. The rest do, though. Also, I could bring up the Tezuka omnibus series[es?]. Ode to Kirihito? $16.5 for 832 pages. Apollo's song? $13.5 for 550 pages. MW? $16.5 for 580 pages (ok, so $33 for 1160 pages, doesn't quite get to Bone, either...).
Also, you quote the retail price for the Akira books, but the discount price for most of these. You can generally get the Akira books for under $20. Additionally, all of them are over 300 pages -- one of them is 440. So yeah, it's more expensive, but it's not nearly as bad as you make it sound.
Fine, I'll go with discount prices on Akira. As of right now, you can only get volumes 2 ($17, 304 pages) and 5 ($19, 416 pages) new on Amazon. They don't even have the others in stock. On Rightstuf, you can get 2, 4, and 5. They're roughly the same prices as Amazons, as well. For volumes 1, 3, and 6? I actually have seen a Borders with the full set. But hey, unless you get coupons from Borders rewards, you'll be paying the MSRP for those. If you don't want to go that route (especially since 99% of Borders don't have the full set, I just got lucky), you can check the used prices on Amazon. Volume 1 can be purchased for $12, but that's a library copy. If you don't want one in ass quality, the next price up is $22, but the quality is still only a "good". If you want "like new", it's $30. For volume 3, the cheapest price as of right now is $58. Volume 4 can be purchased "very good" for $13. Like new at $15. I'll concede this one, but remember that Rightstuf also has this new in stock for $20 anyways, so it's not 100% out of print yet. Once it gets out of print for good, I expect those prices to get right up there like Volume 1's prices. For volume 6, the lowest one is $38, and if you want like new, it's $70. And for the hell of it, I checked ebay. Complete sets are going for around $150-200. That's still $25-33 per volume. All told, if you were to get it from Amazon and Righstuf only, you'd be paying a grand total of $157 (in order: $12, $17, $58, $13, $19, $38, and that's going with the worst quality possible). Page counts being, in order (source: Amazon): 364, 304, 288 (all of em are over 300 pages, eh?), 400, 416, 440. Total: 2212. Alright, so you're paying around $150 for around 2200 pages of manga. As far as I'm concerned, Monster is one of the greatest manga series ever, so I'll put that toe to toe with Akira right now. Total, monster has 18 volumes that are around 200 pages each. That's 3200 pages. Then comparing Righstuf and Amazon, you'll end up spending around $125 on the whole series. Rightstuf has them at $7.50 each, and Amazon has them for $10 each, but they're buy 3 get 1 free, thus it would come out to around $140 (12 volumes, then 4 free, then 2 more). As such, that is how and exactly how I can say, with tons of facts baking me up, that Akira is one of the most overprices manga series ever, and I have no qualms in pirating it.
I also think that judging value by page count is flawed. That's like judging the value of a movie by its running time.
I can judge how far my dollar is taking me by page count. Regardless, as I said in my above post, most of the series released in an omnibus are good.
P.S. Yes, I did have a lot of time on my hands today.
You can get all six volumes of the Akira manga on DeepDiscount for a pretty decent deal. Rounding to the nearest dollar, here are the prices per volume: 1 - $20, 2 - $23, 3 - $20, 4 - $20, 5 - $25, and 6 - $24. Total, that's $132. Taking that deal, the price difference between Akira and Monster isn't that great. For Akira, it works out to about six cents per page, and for Monster (using the numbers you gave) it's about four cents.
Hmmm, I forgot to check DeepDiscount. That seriously raises a red flag for me, considering all the volumes that Amazon doesn't have are indeed out of print, so I'm curious to as how DeepDiscount has them in stock.
Edit: I actually just tried to add all 6 books into my cart on DD, and they're out of stock of every single volume. The message it displays makes it seem like they'll have the items back in stock soon enough, but honestly I'm not quite so sure about that...
I have no confirmation, no proof, no nothing, but I'm guess that Dark Horse is going to reprint Akira in newer unflipped editions in the somewhat near future. They've reprinted all the Shirow books in a newer, better, unflipped format. They've also reprinted books like Crying Freeman and Gunsmith Cats in newer omnibus formats. Also, it looks like they are reprinting Astro Boy in better cheaper editions. Akira must be on that list. If and when they do reprint it, I'll probably buy it. That will be the first time I buy a book I already own.
I have no confirmation, no proof, no nothing, but I'm guess that Dark Horse is going to reprint Akira in newer unflipped editions in the somewhat near future.
They will probably do it when the new live-action movie is released.
Crap, it didn't give me any indicators that the books were out of stock. Usually DeepDiscount has at least some indication, even if it's on the item's page and not in the search results. ><
I'm such a sucker for listener to GN recommendations. They make everything sound so good so I get them and have so far always been dissapointed. Lets see, what have I been tricked into experiencing so far?
Revolutionary Girl Utena - Was slightly below mediocre for me. Watchable but was way too pretentious. I just can't get too hooked on episodic type anime's.
Trigun - Also placed below mediocre level. The whole anime was pretty boring and only the end contained story. The action was also too short and dull for my tastes.
Escaflowne - I thought the Scrym finally hit the jackpot with this recommendation. I enjoyed it for a good while, but then things got horribly, horribly wrong near the end. As soon as the anime started to insult your intelligence the awesomeness of the anime just plumented a few degrees of magnitude. Enhanced luck soldiers and fate particles? Come on! WTF!?! The pointy noses also make the characters look ridiculous.
Here is Greenwood - Pretty typical dumb anime. Nothing special. Thumbs down.
Watchmen - Was OK. Story was alright and artwork wasn't really my style. I'd prefer manga artwork over comic styles. I read everything in it entirely and understood the story and depth, but still not really my thing. Overall was kind of boring for me. Not worth the 20$ I payed for it.
Catan/Peurta Rico/T&E - These are great games but ones that I've owned and played before their recommendations so their's didn't really help. I suppose I'll give them some credit for bringing these games up though.
As of right now, I have all three Prince of Nothing books as well as the Citadels card games comming in the mail. I love fantasy novels and German board games so I hope they will not dissapoint. If they are good it will be the first thing that I will enjoy from a GN reccomendation. I guess our tastes are just too different but I like giving things a try so I keep on listening to you guys. Bah, I need to stop.
I've watched one DVD of Genshiken. It's funny, but it isn't really that funny on repeat watchings. I could be easily convinced to finish the series if I wasn't busy watching animals that suck. More on that in tonight's show.
Comments
And to be clear, I'm not saying that all low budget animation is bad. The measure I'm using is the artistic value. It is possible to have something with a low budget be very artistic. It's just not often the case.
I don't know if you do or not, but if you have even a spark of interest in the story of Evangelion, you might consider watching the new Rebuild of Evangelion movies that are coming out. The first one that's been put out is essentially almost exactly the same as the first six episodes of the TV series (minus a few obvious things), only it's been re-animated with theatrical quality animation and the story has been tightened up and polished. The second one is due out sometime this year, and there are a third and fourth coming as well that will eventually cover the rest of the story and also give it a new ending.
Cause really, how many anime series are there? According to ANN's encyclopedia, 2861 (source: worst rated, last on the list is 2861).
I like probably less than 100 anime series and movies, combined. Thus, the % of anime I like is ~3.5%. That's really low.
On the other hand, I also probably like around 100+ live action movies (if that, probably a large overestimation). That's more than anime. On the other hand, the amount of live action movies trumps anime by a lot, so I'd assume my percentage there is under 1%.
Therefore, making a statement that you only like a few anime is kinda nil, cause most people only like a small % of anime.
Also, Kilarney, have you seen the Akira movie or read the Akira manga?
Even if I do like the first volume, I'm just gonna get the scanlations for the rest. $25 for 300 pages is totally BS when I paid $25 for Bone, which was 1300 pages.
Tekkonkinkreet. 600 pages, $30 MSRP, I got it for around $15.
Battle Royale ultimate edition mangas, 650ish pages, $16 on amazon.
Sgt. Frog vol 1-3 omnibus collection: 550 pages, $12 msrp, can be got for less if you look around the net.
xxxholic and tsubasa vol 1-3 collections: ~600 pages, $13 (seen them at a Barnes and Noble once, haven't seen em on Amazon....not sure how legit they are).
Anything from the Vizbig line: ~600 pages, $12 on Amazon.
Thus, for most of those, you're paying for half of what the akira manga costs, and you're getting around double the pages. You can call me on "quality over quantity", but Vagabond (vizbig in sept.), Rurouni Kenshin, and Tekkonkinkreet are all great manga. I haven't read Sgt. Frog or Battle Royale, but I've also heard good things about those.
Thus, Dark Horse can go fuck themselves before I pay $25 for another 300 pages of manga, unless it's in full color.
I also think that judging value by page count is flawed. That's like judging the value of a movie by its running time.
1300 pages for $25 vs. 600 pages for $12. Double 600 and you get 1200, and double $12 and you get $24. So yes, it is quite close to $25 for 1300 pages.
Thus, only Tekkonkinkreet and Battle Royale don't stand up vs. Bone. The rest do, though.
Also, I could bring up the Tezuka omnibus series[es?]. Ode to Kirihito? $16.5 for 832 pages. Apollo's song? $13.5 for 550 pages. MW? $16.5 for 580 pages (ok, so $33 for 1160 pages, doesn't quite get to Bone, either...). Fine, I'll go with discount prices on Akira. As of right now, you can only get volumes 2 ($17, 304 pages) and 5 ($19, 416 pages) new on Amazon. They don't even have the others in stock. On Rightstuf, you can get 2, 4, and 5. They're roughly the same prices as Amazons, as well.
For volumes 1, 3, and 6? I actually have seen a Borders with the full set. But hey, unless you get coupons from Borders rewards, you'll be paying the MSRP for those. If you don't want to go that route (especially since 99% of Borders don't have the full set, I just got lucky), you can check the used prices on Amazon. Volume 1 can be purchased for $12, but that's a library copy. If you don't want one in ass quality, the next price up is $22, but the quality is still only a "good". If you want "like new", it's $30. For volume 3, the cheapest price as of right now is $58. Volume 4 can be purchased "very good" for $13. Like new at $15. I'll concede this one, but remember that Rightstuf also has this new in stock for $20 anyways, so it's not 100% out of print yet. Once it gets out of print for good, I expect those prices to get right up there like Volume 1's prices. For volume 6, the lowest one is $38, and if you want like new, it's $70.
And for the hell of it, I checked ebay. Complete sets are going for around $150-200. That's still $25-33 per volume.
All told, if you were to get it from Amazon and Righstuf only, you'd be paying a grand total of $157 (in order: $12, $17, $58, $13, $19, $38, and that's going with the worst quality possible).
Page counts being, in order (source: Amazon): 364, 304, 288 (all of em are over 300 pages, eh?), 400, 416, 440. Total: 2212.
Alright, so you're paying around $150 for around 2200 pages of manga. As far as I'm concerned, Monster is one of the greatest manga series ever, so I'll put that toe to toe with Akira right now. Total, monster has 18 volumes that are around 200 pages each. That's 3200 pages. Then comparing Righstuf and Amazon, you'll end up spending around $125 on the whole series. Rightstuf has them at $7.50 each, and Amazon has them for $10 each, but they're buy 3 get 1 free, thus it would come out to around $140 (12 volumes, then 4 free, then 2 more).
As such, that is how and exactly how I can say, with tons of facts baking me up, that Akira is one of the most overprices manga series ever, and I have no qualms in pirating it. I can judge how far my dollar is taking me by page count. Regardless, as I said in my above post, most of the series released in an omnibus are good.
P.S. Yes, I did have a lot of time on my hands today.
Edit: I actually just tried to add all 6 books into my cart on DD, and they're out of stock of every single volume. The message it displays makes it seem like they'll have the items back in stock soon enough, but honestly I'm not quite so sure about that...
Revolutionary Girl Utena - Was slightly below mediocre for me. Watchable but was way too pretentious. I just can't get too hooked on episodic type anime's.
Trigun - Also placed below mediocre level. The whole anime was pretty boring and only the end contained story. The action was also too short and dull for my tastes.
Escaflowne - I thought the Scrym finally hit the jackpot with this recommendation. I enjoyed it for a good while, but then things got horribly, horribly wrong near the end. As soon as the anime started to insult your intelligence the awesomeness of the anime just plumented a few degrees of magnitude. Enhanced luck soldiers and fate particles? Come on! WTF!?! The pointy noses also make the characters look ridiculous.
Here is Greenwood - Pretty typical dumb anime. Nothing special. Thumbs down.
Watchmen - Was OK. Story was alright and artwork wasn't really my style. I'd prefer manga artwork over comic styles. I read everything in it entirely and understood the story and depth, but still not really my thing. Overall was kind of boring for me. Not worth the 20$ I payed for it.
Catan/Peurta Rico/T&E - These are great games but ones that I've owned and played before their recommendations so their's didn't really help. I suppose I'll give them some credit for bringing these games up though.
As of right now, I have all three Prince of Nothing books as well as the Citadels card games comming in the mail. I love fantasy novels and German board games so I hope they will not dissapoint. If they are good it will be the first thing that I will enjoy from a GN reccomendation. I guess our tastes are just too different but I like giving things a try so I keep on listening to you guys. Bah, I need to stop.
WATCH PLEASE THANK YOU!
I think the above comment was directed at iruul, who thinks everything sucks.