Forum - View topicThe Mike Toole Show - Rumiko Rundown
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kgw
Posts: 1149 Location: Spain, EU |
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Probably the fact that it's called "Castle in the sky" instead of "Laputa" has something to do with that -apparently they didn't want a "Holy f***, a castle in the sky". As for the name itself, it was spelled in the Japanese way: "La-pyu-ta". About Ranma, I actually started in the manga with it. A real classic, and I think it's way, way more "prude" than some actual animes, for example. |
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Waffitti
Posts: 55 |
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ANN says that they cut Laputa from the title; Wikipedia says that the castle was changed to Lapuntu. Something similar happened when the Star Wars prequels were released here, Dooku's name was changed to "Dookan" ("do cu" is portuguese for "from the ass"). Also, wasn't Laputa named after a place in Gulliver's Travels, a satire of travelers' stories? Wonder what lead Miyazaki to base himself off of that...
My memory gets pretty fuzzy when it comes to Toonami (it came here in '02 and was moved to midnight in '04), Sesshomaru was InuYasha's brother, right? I remember he used to walk around with a comic relief gremlin or something? I wasn't very big on romance, seeing dudes with swords that heal and guys with magic holes in their hands was enough to hook me in. On the topic of Beautiful Dreamer, wasn't it really divisive among fans when it came out for being more Oshii than Takahashi and lead to Oshii to distance himself from adapting other people's things and more towards what he wanted to make? (and didn't he make a film that was kinda sorta the Summer Wars to Beautiful Dreamer's Our War Game!?) |
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Touma
Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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That is correct.
Those characters were definitely part of the attraction for me. Especially since neither of them wanted what they had. |
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Bluenoser
Posts: 39 |
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I'm in my late 40s now, and what brought me first to anime was due to my being a hard core Science Fiction reader since my early childhood and the lack of much SF on TV and movies (well good SF, as opposed to it being used as a plot device of some type for other types of storytelling). Then I had Astroboy show up but what was the real hook in my mouth was Star Blazers/Space Battleship Yamato back in the 70s. That is what set me to looking for more Japanese animation because I had finally found good SF storytelling in audio-visual form. I was thrilled with all the mecha and space anime out there, compared to what was around in NA it was a horn of plenty to me, but I was still only a SF fan filling his SF needinesss, not a anime convert/fan.
Then I was introduced to Those Obnoxious Aliens (it was shown to me by accident really because of the alien girl aspect, at the time I was very limited in what I liked for fiction and I did not stray from it) and I started to get hooked on that anime. I then met both Maison Ikkoku and Ranma, and I loved both of them so much I started trying to find the manga, and my interest in anime and manga beyond the hardcore SF element was born and has since become a massive broad ranging addiction of over three full decades now. And it was Rumiko Takahashi who opened the full world of anime and the world of manga up to me, and the enjoyment and the richness it has brought to me ever since. I truly fell in love with her stories and characters at first sight, and I have never encountered a work of hers that I did not enjoy at least somewhat, even when the content was not normally something I would find appealing from other sources. There was always a warmth and heart to them even in the silliest of plots, and yet she managed to keep things from becoming overly sentimental to the detriment of that warmth and heart in her various works, at least for me that is true since this is something subjective I realize some others may not agree. Ranma is what got me interested in the martial arts/fighting genres of anime/manga, yet I watched it at least as much because I really enjoyed the dynamics of the core group of the Tendou and Saotomi families and the core group of characters surrounding them (Shampoo, the Kunoh siblings especially the brother, and of course Ryouga). Nabiki is an all time favourite character of both me and my wife, she is a wonderful mostly amoral personality who manages to not tip over into true sadism and nastiness while still retaining a real sharpness to her, and this in a time when such characters tended not to be around much thanks to the tendency of NA audiences and those that served them to keep things nice and safe/bland. As well the way the feelings between Ranma and Akane developed as they both developed as characters over the life of the story felt far more truly human than a lot of such relationship stories do, and not just those from anime/manga either. I could go on and on about various Takahashi shows and characters and why I loved them, but I am enough of a windbag as it is so I think I'll spare people for a change. The bottom line for me is this, while Yamato and Astroboy give me the incentive to start looking for more anime because it fed my SF junkie desires, it was Rumiko Takahashi who addicted me to the wider worlds of anime and manga beyond my narrow SF interests, and I have had a far richer fiction diet in my life for it. She brought whole new worlds and genres to life for me, created whole new lines of interests for me, gave me incredible joy and pleasure first from her own works and later from the so many others I have since encountered because she started me down that path and showed me what there really was out there. I credit her with making me a fan of anime and manga itself, and I am certain I am far from the only one and not just from my generation either. BTW, I like many others tend to cringe whenever I encounter someone talking about Maison Ikkoku/Ranma/Those Obnoxious Aliens as being from the creator of Inuyasha, seeing as they all came prior to Inuyasha in actual chronological order. However, given that for younger audiences Inuyasha is the gateway anime to her body of work I can understand why it happens. Although one of my other cherished memories come from Robot Chicken and a sketch they did with a father getting into Inuyasha from his daughter and getting to be more of a addict than her (and all in the end so as to turn her off of it so he could watch what he wanted, but still), as it really underscored just how much that series had permeated American media culture. Not to mention the sketch in its own right was fairly amusing. |
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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And the fact that Cartoon Network was anime-racist sick of it by that point. Every time they start to be a little more fan-tolerant of their latest Toonami/AS hit, along comes another Bleach, InuYasha or Majin Buu to make them feel like they're in Geek Alcatraz for the long stretch. |
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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Not really, since Oshii's "artsiness" had already shaped the third season of the show, and BD was easily the most distinct distillation of the "real" fan appeal of the series than the first-season Only You was. (Which Oshii hated, and not without valid reason, although it's cute.) Given that the first season was obnoxiously awful for clinging to Takahashi's manga stories/art, fans had always credited the show's cool later style up to the halfway mark as "Oshii's show", not Rumiko's. The "artsy" touch pretty much set the bar for the entire series after that, and you can see Yamazaki's Movie 3 & 4 try for the same "eerie" tone to follow Beautiful Dreamer's lead, but nobody could capture the same mix of eerie movie and screwy character humor from the original show, and make lightning strike twice. Movie 4 tried to be ALL Dreamer-eerie and zero humor, and was an infamous disaster. Frankly, it's Oshii's "serious" projects that never quite lived up-- Watching Sky Crawlers, I felt like Oshii was living through his old plots over and over, day after day, and never noticing.... |
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Waffitti
Posts: 55 |
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Can Takahashi be considered the one responsible for introducing the "not that interesting protagonist that unites a supporting cast that's far more interesting through the story" concept into the mainstream?
Didn't he kinda sorta use his earlier works (Beautiful Dreamer, Dallos) as prototypes for the Kerberos Saga? |
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Maidenoftheredhand
Posts: 2634 |
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Maison Ikkoku has one of the best endings in anime/manga. Inuyasha's was overly long sure but it was certainly conclusive. One Pound Gospel also had a very conclusive ending. The rest of her series might not have conclusive endings but they seem to fit the nature of those series. Ranma 1/2 for example while continuous to a degree was a series of individual stories with the same cast. A "life goes on ending" fit perfectly. So I never really understood the argument that Takahashi doesn't know how to end her stories. It seems this criticism comes from people who hear things but haven't actually read a lot of her work. And also she wrote a lot of really good short stories, so she can be brief if she wants to. |
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zrdb
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Maison Ikkoku-the winner!! Never really cared for Inu Yasha-but I did get the Final Chaper bluray sets. Urusei Yatsura-ok but not to enthused.
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Patches
Posts: 36 |
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"Kyoukai no Rinne" has actually been pretty lethargic in its reception. Yeah, it's at chapter 234 right now, but its sales have been pretty mediocre and it doesn't have a very sizable fandom. It's been running for something like 5 years now and there's still no talk of an anime version.
I've still been following the series, but it doesn't really get me excited to see what happens in the next chapter the way "Inuyasha" did when it was still running. Probably because Rinne doesn't have any plot. Almost every chapter is a stand-alone story that restores the status quo by the end, and almost every story follows exactly the same format: Rinne tries to do some spirit-y work to earn money, hijinks ensue, Rinne doesn't earn money. Combine that with plot threads introduced in the beginning about Rinne's mother or his father trying to hook him up with Sakura that have been utterly forgotten, or the blatant ret-conning of the source of Rinne's financial woes less than 40 chapters in, and I get the impression that the series has no idea where it's going. The description in the article makes me think the author hasn't actually read Rinne, since the romantic tension is barely there, and the main cast is way more mellow than any of Takahashi's previous leads. You have to get to the tertiary characters to get into the "zany" ones. It's an okay series, but it really has nothing attention-grabbing about it. |
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InuKag1
Posts: 122 |
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InuKag1
Posts: 122 |
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InuKag1
Posts: 122 |
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I agree! It is still my favorite show ever and I've never seen any of her other stuff since Inuyasha was the first show to get me hooked on anime. I've seen plenty of shows since then and nothing tops it so Rumiko Takahashi, I owe it all to you! |
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Waffitti
Posts: 55 |
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Just as an example, watch this video, InuYasha calls for "Agome" 2 seconds in. And listening to later episodes he continues to call her that for the remainder of the series. ...I forgot that Sango's VA was the same one that did female Ranma and that Agome's was the one that did Nabiki, Miroku was Young Happosai... |
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InuKag1
Posts: 122 |
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Oh so they changed it for the Spanish version? Hmm didn't know that. I only watch the English Dub |
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