Forum - View topicI Watched It For The Story
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tintor2
 Posts: 2271 |
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I guess D.Gray-man fits perfectly. TMS didn't do that many appealing fight scenes or stunning episodes besides some where the characters look identical to the opening. D.Gray-man Hallow goes even when Kanda and Alma's fight is so gory that they notably censor the brutal parts but it was never released the Bluray with the intact content. The story at least managed to expand more of Allen's newfound way of living in the Order as it gave several episodes focused on lesser important characters before Noah's Ark and even Kanda becoming friendlier years before Hoshino ever did. The scene where Allen creates the Crowned Clown is beautifully made in Jack Skellington like style which goes from black comedy to Allen addressing the exorcists as people he also realized he fell in love with.
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Zendervai
 Posts: 207 |
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I agree pretty heartily on Eat Man. The existence of the 1997 anime is absolutely baffling on all levels but it’s so singular and so much itself that it deserves to exist. The closest comparison I have to it is the original Kino’s Journey anime, but, IMO, an anthology series about a weird guy wandering around and getting into surreal adventures is something we always need more of, even if it’s hard to make something like that unarguably good.
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Nobody14
Posts: 6 |
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I’d say G Gundam I guess. You can tell they were on an even tighter budget than Victory, and the team didn’t yet have the experience to make things look consistently pretty decent like they would with Wing the following year. They saved some really good animation for when it counted and used some very solid direction to cover the budgetary issues, and made a pretty great battle shonen.
Another good example that nearly slipped my mind is Exception on Netflix. I watched it since the writer, Otsuichi, is mostly really solid, and I was mostly happy with it. It didn’t look the greatest, though I’d argue it managed to stylize itself decently and cover it’s issues, but the writing and a plot that was never afraid to throw it’s premise away for a more interesting direction carried it hard. Though I’ll admit I wasn’t really onboard with the final conflict, despite liking the ending itself. |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2285 |
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Well, shoot. The original Kino’s Journey is far and away one of the best things I’ve ever seen (I adored that contemplative mood it was going for), so I guess I gotta track down Eat Man now! Also, yeah, I guess I’d also put D.Gray-Man as my thing. Honestly I remember being so hooked by Higurashi’s story on my first go-round with it that I didn’t even notice the wonky animation til years later when I rewatched it. 
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Flash33
 Posts: 94 Location: Florida |
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Regarding So I'm a Spider, So What?, I've watched it twice (dubbed of course) and enjoyed it twice, and while yes the CGI quality isn't the best and could be better I don't think it's horrible either and in way lends the series a certain charm. Many shows had mediocre CGI use back then, and while that's certainly no excuse for having it in the first place, when viewed from that lens it's not that bad honestly & there are certainly worse instances out there than Spider. I also liked how it weaved in both past and present events pretty well, though I'm aware that's a minority opinion.
As for the OP/ED songs while I thought the OPs were decent (I liked OP2 more), I wasn't a fan of the EDs, especially not ED1. Of course it wouldn't be as fondly remembered if it weren't for the voice cast, such as Xander Mobus as Hugo, Alejandro Saab as Shun, Veronica Taylor as Ariel and Brianna Knickerbocker as Kumoko/The Spider, who all do an excellent job in their roles. |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5200 |
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I remember watching Elfen Lied for the gore. I ultimately got the manga because I wanted to compare the two stories.
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Oggers
 Posts: 395 Location: Ontario, Canada |
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I guess Acro Trip would be this for me. I enjoyed the anime, but I still wish the visuals and animation could have been a bit less workmanlike. It could have helped with making some of the comedic timing work better.
And man, seeing xxxHolic brought up always reminds me how CLAMP's more "noodly" art style (which is thanks to Tsubaki Nekoi taking over as the main artist for some of their works) really doesn't translate well to animation most of the time. The anime's dull colors didn't help in that regard, either. |
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tintor2
Posts: 2271 |
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Yeah. It seems certain animated works didn't try to emulate Clamp's style perfectly with the two Tokyo Babylon OVAs having more realistic body propotions. I recall that the Tokyo Babylon cancelled series was designing Seishiro in a completely different fashion. Still, the most obvious Clamp work with overthetop limbs besides xxxHolic has to be Code Geass though apparently that has more to do with the late character animator who added more sex appeal both to Code Geass as well as Gun x Sword. |
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njprogfan
 Collector Extraordinaire Posts: 1261 Location: A River Named Toms |
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Love the characters, love the story, the direction is horrible; camera placement, screen angles, wide shots/close-ups, it's so all-over-the-place it kept me out of the story at times. I'm eventually going to read the light novels because I don't see them adapting beyond what's been animated so far and if it's anything like what's been done I'll pass. |
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tintor2
Posts: 2271 |
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Another TMS anime that has been famous for quite a while is Dr. Stone. It started around the same time as Jujutsu Kaisen but the quality of animation is ridiculously different. Unlike Jujutus Kaisen, Dr. Stone barely tries showing fights with the exception of its Stone Wars (season 2) which had a lot of limited animation. TMS sure doesn't seem to fight well considering recent critcism to Sakamoto Days which is an actual action series in contrast to Dr. Stone. At least I had a lot of fun with the fight scenes from Sakamoto Days with the train one being an epic mix of comedy and badassery from the protagonist.
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2754 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I have a few series that would fit this concept, though for me personally I never put pure animation quality over the actual story/characters/etc. Anyway, here would be some of my personal picks:
The Violinist of Hameln: Back in the day people would nickname this "The Slideshow of Hameln" due to the fact that there is very little actual animation to be seen in this series for most of it, instead preferring to utilize slow pans of still shots & a heavy usage of Dezaki-style "Postcard Memories". However, the visual themselves are generally drawn very well (they just don't animate a lot), the story & characters are absolutely stellar, & the music (complete with a ton of arrangements of various classic music) is simply amazing. Government Crime Investigation Agent Zaizen Jotaro: This show was treated as a laughing stock back when it debuted, partially because of the limited animation that relied heavily on cut-ins to transition from shot to another. Also, Episode 1 is indisputably utter crap but, luckily, can actually be 100% ignored because it literally plays no importance to the rest of the show whatsoever. However, as you continue watching the show the cut-ins start becoming more & more interesting, clever, & sometimes kind of amazing. I mean, near the end there's a cut-in where the shot opens up like a door, because the next scene begins with someone opening up a door, and my mind was kind of blown when it happened. Some also poked fun at the series on a conceptual level... but, considering recent events, I think the idea of an extralegal organization that's all about busting government corruption (& the main character is a bit of a Kenshiro-esque "MAN") is now more of an actual ideal than something completely unrealistic & groan-worthy, isn't it? Acrobunch: The Quest for Treasure: This one definitely fits the criteria well, because visually the show can sometimes look a bit rough. However, the concept ("Indiana Jones, but he now has a family & a giant robot") is awesome, the stories told are fun, and there's kind of a raw visual charm to the sometimes rough animation, especially in the first half. Hareluya II BØY: This one you can check for yourself over on Hidive right now. Visually, BØY kind look... well, to be perfectly honest, rather chintzy, and you'd be hard pressed to believe that this came from the same studio that previously did Macross Plus & would later do Serial Experiments Lain. However, literally everything else about the BØY anime is simply outstanding, whether it's the immediately lovable cast, the various stories told, the utterly 90s visual aesthetic, the absolutely stellar soundtrack, & the utterly bonkers final episode. If I had to pick just one for this concept, it'd have to be Hareluya II BØY. |
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akitainu
 Posts: 141 Location: SATX |
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Otherside Picnic...love the LNs and the manga adaptation...but, man did the anime look bad. Real bad. It also made a couple weird (and frankly, nonsensical) chronological changes.
But, I still kind of like it...enough to buy the BD even. The casting (Japanese) was spot on, the story is mostly intact and sometimes it looks so bad it's fascinating in an ugly dog sort of way. |
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db999
Posts: 358 |
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Sailor Moon Crystal Season 1. It started out as an ONA with episodes airing every 2 weeks, and it still mostly looked like crap. Characters would constantly go off model, the fight scenes were poorly composed, and most of the animation was fairly limited, but I really liked the story and characters, I hadn’t yet watched the 90s anime when I started watching the show. It’s also not the only series by Toei that looked bad at that time, the 2 other shows I watched from them circa 2014 were World Trigger which was barely animated, and Dragon Ball Super which had episodes that lookied like crap and some episodes that were well animated. Crystal started to look good with season 2, and Dragon Ball Super also eventually started looking good, but I never made it far enough into World Trigger to see if that show's animation eventually improved as well.
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A Mystery
 Posts: 1892 Location: Netherlands |
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Fun article.
Kare Kano / His or her circumstances had very little animation too. |
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joac101
Posts: 65 |
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I just want to say I'm very happy that someone mentioned Ooku. It's legit one of the best anime stories in recent years.
Also....I feel we are bullying Polygon Pictures a bit much over here 
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