Forum - View topicThe Mike Toole Show - Wizards & Warriors
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2680 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Well, there is the Wizardry OVA, which AnimEigo never licensed due to circumstances revolving around Sir-Tech; personally, I think Robert Woodhead simply didn't want to pay a royalty for something he co-created... It would be like George Lucas having to pay a royalty to use the Star Wars name, in a sense. |
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dragon695
 Posts: 1377 Location: Clemson, SC |
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I absolutely adore Guin Saga. That said, I readily recognize that there were difficulties adapting 130 light novels to a 26 episode run. It's a shame, too, because the story really starts to get good where the anime left off. I doubt we'll see any more, but I'm looking forward to reading the light novels. The world building is epic, as is the characterization. Thanks for talking about this title, I think it tends to get overlooked by the fandom.
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crazychild
Posts: 79 |
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The thing I'll always remember most about the RoLW OVA (besides the awesome opening) is how the dragons in the last couple of episodes are barely animated and just slide across the screen 99% of the time.
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danilo07
 Posts: 1580 |
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Definitely Mushishi.It had everything great art,animation,story,music even directing is top notch.I really do not understand why it does not get the love it deserves.
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dragon695
Posts: 1377 Location: Clemson, SC |
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If the rumors are true, Mashima is a manga drawing machine who never misses a deadline. |
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DavidShallcross
 Posts: 1008 |
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This reminds me that I should search the used market for Record of Lodoss War, now that Media Blasters has given up on it.
Although this article will probably bump the price up a bit. |
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Keichitsu0305
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Yay! I can finally contribute to this article!
Favorite Western fantasy: Vision Of Escaflowne. The pacing in this series is great. I don't recall ever asking myself, "What was the point of this episode?" My only problem with the show is the finale. It felt rather odd how spoiler[Hitomi defeated the antagonist of the series by simply talking to him. But I guess diplomacy can actually work. :/] Other than that, I love re-watching Escaflowne whenever I want some good fantasy. I like both Kyou Kara Maou and Slayers because of the comedy and that the characters are silly at times. Magic Knight Rayearth (the TV series not the OVA) was also fun except for, of course, the ending. >__> I have to watch Record of Lodoss War since I keep hearing how good it is.. Favorite Eastern fantasy: Princess Mononoke. This film made me interested in Japanese mythology so I think it's the best Eastern fantasy anime I've ever seen. I would include Mushi-shi but I'm guessing there's a difference between supernatural and fantasy. Xxxholic, Natsume's Book of Friends, and Mononoke are my favorite TV Eastern fantasies so far. |
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Melanchthon
 Posts: 550 Location: Northwest from Here |
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I love high fantasy. There's something to be said about a works that can create such a detailed world to explore.
Scrapped Princess is one of my favorites, because it is a rare 'Dying Earth' genre of show. The Dying Earth genre was created by Jack Vance, and postulates a world where not only is technology indistinguishable from magic, it has been forgotten that it is technology at all. Vance's books heavily influenced the creation of Dungeons and Dragons, which in turn influenced about everything that followed. (My spreadsheet also lists Murder Princess as a Dying Earth show, but I don't remember that one that well.) Slayers is one of my favorites, I own every season, all the OVAs and all the movies. We can debate sub vs dub until the Mayan Apocalypse, but there is no excuse to ever watch Slayers dubbed. Hayashibara Megumi's role as Lina is one of the single best VA performances ever. A favorite of mine is Tears to Tiara, which is a epic, gnostic take on various Arthurian and Celtic legends (Basically, and I'm simplifying here, Gnosticism is the belief that the world and the creator god are evil. This idea is also found in Shana, where the God of Destruction is the good guy and the God of Creation is the baddie). I've actually played some of the eroge it was based (it was far too lolicon, even for me), but the anime cleans itself up nicely and refocuses on the story, removing most of the ero crap. I have to ask, where is 12 Kingdoms on this list? It is a pinnacle of high fantasy. Also, as mentioned, there is Wizardry, which is quite literally a video game without the interaction. In a similar vein, there is Gesalt, which although I haven't finished the manga yet, which incorporates heavily on video game tropes. And there is Luna Varga, where a princess summons a demon (actually, a T-Rex, which makes this the most awesome anime ever) to save her kingdom, and as a result grows a large lizard tail, which is weirdly moe. Sacred Blacksmith has the swords and spells fantasy down, but the show was largely a disappointment. And speaking of disappointments, there is Sorcerer Hunters, which is the bizarro-Slayers of the anime world. I've never seen Lodoss War, but maybe I should if its that good. And I refuse to watch Guin Saga, because it trips my furry sensors. I may be biased, but I try to be honest about it. |
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danilo07
Posts: 1580 |
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Well I would have not included Mushishi if Michael did include Berserk which is a dark fantasy and people do agree that here is small difference between those two genres. |
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ladybastet
Posts: 21 |
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My absolute favorite anime fantasy is Escaflowne. One I didn't see mentioned that is a must for comic fantasy lovers is Tower of Druaga. Sands of Destruction is also a lot of fun. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18458 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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It is, as its later episodes reveal that spoiler[a past civilization created technology sufficient to destroy the world and had to seal it away because it came pretty damn close to completely doing so. The plot ultimately revolves around the original princess being the key to unlocking that dangerous tech.]
I imagine that it didn't get feature treatment because it's a purely Eastern-styled fantasy. Not mentioning it at the end was definitely an oversight, though.
I didn't find it to be a disappointment, but it does bridge the gap between pure fantasy and some more modern-times anime sensibilities about romantic relationships. Still, it is Western-style and certainly worth a mention.
Record of Lodoss War is a title that any anime fan who's also into fantasy RPGs owes it to themselves to see at some point. It hasn't aged well, as the animation is outright crappy in many places, but no anime series captures the "dice rolling behind the screen" feel half as well as it does. |
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KakulonSSJ4
Posts: 15 |
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My favorite of the fantasy fare definitely had to be Berserk and Record of Lodoss War OVA, although for some reason I was even fine with the Lodoss War TV Series. Maybe it's because King Kashue is absolutely one of the most badass kings ever and just an awesome character in general.
I definitely need to watch some more Guin Saga as the first few episodes didn't quite capture my attention, but in general, fantasy with quite a bit of action is what captures my attention. Lastly, when will Berserk get another anime season?! Come on Japan! |
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Ingraman
Posts: 1084 |
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A pair that I don't recall, or was that supposed to be Laurel and Hardy? Hmm... Googling shows someone using "Orville and Hardy" to sell a photo on Amazon, but nothing else. Lodoss OVA was one of the first anime that I saw after getting interested in anime back at AnimeCon '91. I loved watching unsubbed Japanese grocery-store-rental tapes of Vision of Escaflowne (immediately after finishing watching unsubbed Evangelion on similar tapes, since it started the following season) enough to import the LDs, buying the Anime Village US VHS release using the same beautiful cover art, then Bandai's DVD release, and finally the recent Blu-ray release. I was hooked from the opening theme. SutePrix/Scrapped Princess was another series that I imported from Japan, then double-dipped with Bandai's US release. Lots of fun fantasy anime, with 12 Kingdoms being my favorite (loving Media Blasters' Blu-ray release...). There's so much good stuff out there. |
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Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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I had been wondering why there hadn't been a Mike Toole Show in a while; I should've guessed.
I read a lot of fantasy when I was a boy. The Redwall books when I was in late elementary and junior high school, then Tolkien, Feist, Hobb, Eddings and Jordan when I was a little older. I read most of A Song of Ice and Fire a few years ago, but haven't read the latest book or seen the series. What I enjoy about it is the creation of a fictional world. I don't think that Japan has really produced an equivalent to Tolkien and his Lord of the Rings, because what distinguishes him to me is the effort he put into devising his mythology and especially his languages, to an extent that in a sense, The Lord of the Rings is an excuse for or byproduct of that. I have a special fondness for constructed worlds and especially constructed languages; I even dabble fruitlessly in them myself (Chydihsdi wy ghydhgesahziy mydharhngah chac hudyféfy gy dhuch chesti). Still, less ambitious fantasy, which can still be pretty ambitious, is fun stuff. I've never watched Record of Lodoss War, but I remember the Sci-Fi Channel showing it many moons ago. Reading this has made me recall that I watched a few episodes of some Slayers series on The International channel a long while ago. It was shown in Japanese with subtitles, which became a problem when the channel was set to be removed from my cable line-up, so they ran a constant text crawl about that across the bottom of the screen. I liked the Tower of Druaga series, even though they're mostly unambitious after the first episode. It's in that category of the 'well done very familiar' for me and gets by on a pretty appealing cast. I wonder if we could shoehorn Le Chevalier D'Eon into this category. In some ways it's more historical fiction, but it has many fantastical or supernatural elements.
I just watched Scrapped Princess a little while ago and really liked it. I'd seen Murder Princess before that and they have quite a few things in common as it turns out in Murder Princess that spoiler[there was a more technologically advanced civilization that fell, leading to a medieval world]. I enjoyed Murder Princess, but I think that Scrapped Princess is more refined and doesn't have killer child-robots or yuri.
Oy vey, The Sacred Blacksmith. That was the second series I watched after Claymore lured me back to anime and it did not go well. Claymore on the other hand, was pretty good. It was hobbled by some of its shōnen nonsense and gecko ending, but it had its western fantasy tropes down pat and carved a pretty effective atmosphere out of them. Last edited by Surrender Artist on Sun Apr 22, 2012 12:09 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Chagen46
 Posts: 4377 |
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Great article. I think I should check out Slayers, it seems; I'm writing an original fiction story very similar in concept to it (comedic fantasy) and I'd love to get some inspiration.
You too, huh? I'm an aspiring linguist and an avid conlanger myself. I didn't think anybody else here liked conlangs, though. |
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