Forum - View topicEpic Anime
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Riyozo
 Posts: 1 Location: NJ |
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Yes, the title says it all. As my first topic I want everyone to give me the anime they believe can only be described as epic. The anime don't necessarily have to have a flawless storyline, or have characters that you know better than yourself by the end. Whatever the reason, just give a list of the anime that made you say "...that was epic". Of course, I have a few of my own. =D
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Sequel now please! I'm sure this was the first anime some of you thought of when you saw the word "epic". At least for me it was. Right from the first episode to the last, this anime kept me on the edge of my seat, and every week I waited fervently for the next episode. Melancholy made me think and theorize like no other anime or video game; that's a huge feat considering anime like Evangelion and games like FFX and Chrono Cross under my belt. Speaking of Chrono... Chrno Crusade: " Pfft. epic? really?" Yes. I'm a big fan of stuff with Christian undertones, and for a Japanese anime I think they handled it really well. Plus, they made it interesting by putting their own spin on things. I'll get straight to the point though: this anime is epic because of the connection I felt with the characters. I won't reveal too much, but it made the ending that much better to me, and it's one of those anime that I won't forget. Did I mention it has a good ending? Actually, forget good. It has an ending, period. Scrapped Princess: One of the few adventure-esque anime. This anime has everything: the story came together really well, I loved the characters, the animation was beautiful, it had comedy, action, romance, drama, magic, mystery, sci-fi, AND fanservice. But that's not why this anime is epic. On no. Scrapped Princess is epic simply because I had a lot of fun watching it. It was very entertaining, and isn't that the point of anime itself? Death Note: Last but not least. Another popular choice I would assume, and I doubt I really have to explain this one. Everything about this anime just screams epic from the top of its lungs. Just listen to the music as Light writes down names, listen to how he laughs in the last episode, and most importantly look at how Light ate that potato chip...and then come back to this topic and tell me this anime isn't epic. Not to mention the epic second intro. Maximum the Hormone woot! Runner-ups: Code Geass 1 and 2 (so far), Elfen Lied, Excel Saga, Evangelion, FLCL, Cowboy Bebop, Ranma 1/2! (my first anime! bias ftw) and...I guess...Full Metal Alchemist |
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r-18
 Posts: 62 Location: northren oregon |
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I'm not all that sure any anime i have seen has been epic, most where good and enjoyable a few stunk but epic? perhaps Record of lodoss war. it had the heroic and mythical characteristics so perhaps that would be one i could say was epic.
the description below is from wikipedia about epic poetry and lodoss fill most of the main categories. Epics have 6 main characteristics: 1 The hero is of imposing stature, of national or international importance, and of great historical or legendary significance. 2 The setting is vast, covering many nations, the world, or the universe. 3 The action consists of deeds of great valor or requiring superhuman courage. 4 Supernatural forces—gods, angels, demons—insert themselves in the action. 5 A style of sustained elevation is used. 6 The poet retains a measure of objectivity |
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BladeDragoonZETA
 Posts: 586 |
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Epic has become a catch-all term lately but heck I'll throw in a few
Gunbuster and Gunbuster 2-these two series are an insane ride the scale and pwnage (for lack of better term) make these series an amazing story King of Braves GaoGaiGar/GaoGaiGar FINAL this series about courage, guts and determination. starts out feeling very similar to power rangers but as it moves into the second have things speed up and become ridiculously out of hand (in the best way possible). TENGEN TOPPA GURREN LAGANN why did I list this series in all-caps bolded italicized and underlined because this series is almost indisputably epic. the anime just continues one-uping itself to ridiculous levels. |
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dirkusbirkus
 Posts: 699 Location: Manchester, UK |
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Epic is a tough one to define. For me, it'd mean anime that excel in their relevant field... Whether it be action, drama , romance, horror... and it wouldn't necessarily mean they were the best in their respective areas, just that they be provocative.
You'd have to put Neon Genesis Evangelion firmly under the epic banner, because whilst it has its haters (justifiably so), you can't deny it's impact on modern anime and the amount of discussion it has instigated (and continues to instigate) is proof of this. By that reckoning you'd maybe have to include Akira too. Again, lots of haters but again, a title that is intimately associated with the modern anime canon. |
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Xenofan 29A
 Posts: 378 |
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Evangelion is NOT epic. In fact, it is an anti-epic (my term), something which by definition stands in direct opposition to the principles of an epic. It takes the trappings and skeleton of an epic and fills them in with a completely different substance.
Take, for example, the scope/landscape of the show. It shrinks as the show progresses. Heck, the city itself becomes increasingly more contained. The finale occurs inside a single person's mind. Again, Evangelion is not epic because Shinji is not a hero. An anti-hero cannot be the protagonist of an epic. His primary conflict is with himself, and even once all of the epic trappings involvings the angels, the conspiracies, and so on are stripped away, the primary conflict remains. In an epic, the conflicts would lie in those elements. Okay, that's the end of my rant. I think that Full Metal Alchemist might be seen as a sort of epic. The scope is wide enough, and personal conflicts take a backseat to external ones. I'll agree that the Gunbuster series (both of them) have epic-like elements, especially the over-the-top nature that the epic requires, but I don't think they have quite the length to be epics. Also, the storytelling is really more focused on personal conflict than interstellar war. |
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Boomerang Flash
 Posts: 1021 |
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The prototypical epics of the Occident are the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer. It is to these that one first looks to see whether a piece of work fits the definition of an epic.
First, let us examine the Odyssey. Take, for example, the scope of the show. It shrinks from the exotic islands and countries of myths to the familiar city of Ithaca. The numbers involved is reduced from the ship to a single man and his family. The finale consists of said family and an old servant butchering a bunch of drunken, rowdy squatters inside the Odysseus' house after sneaking about it and hiding their opponents' weapons. Now, let us look at the Iliad. Its protagonist is Achilles. He is a temperamental, childish, and selfish man who sits in his tent and watches as the Greeks engage in their bloody battle because of a quarrel with Agamemnon over a woman, and his reaction while almost drowning in a river is to cry to his mother for help. However, he is a man of great prowess in battle and an indispensable asset to the Greeks, regardless much their leaders may try to get along without him. His conflicts are entirely personal--with Agamemnon over a woman, and with Hector for slaying his friend. Nor does the inclusion of low comedy work against the classification of a piece of work. "No man has blinded me" is just a little pun that is inserted to derive some humor at the expense of the barbaric cyclops. These elements must be of great prominence to undermine the epic premise. Alternatively, the epic elements may be undermined by being trivialized, which is the case in Slayers. However, this isn't the case in Evangelion, which may be considered an epic, depending on the importance one attaches to the elevated language characteristic and how to adapt its meaning to anime. It is certainly an epic by dirkusbirkus's definition. Epic anime that come to my mind are mostly science fiction. It's not too surprising. It's much easier to expand the scope of the work when the settings can be expanded to include the vastness of space and its uncounted millions of stars. It is easier to have an important theme such as human progress when the setting explores the last frontier, and it can be done more safely--without degenerating into gibberish. Macross is the most obvious example, and I need not go into too much detail. The other title I like to mention is Heroic Age. As you may suspect, it draws heavily from Greek mythology. The scope is large--the battles involve thousands of capital ships and their content, last for days to weeks, and involve the wholesale destruction of planets and planetary populations. It is a somewhat uncommon example of an anime that uses something like elevated language, with the characters talking mostly of the interstellar conflict and an old prophecy left by an elder race. The primary narrator is a princess who speaks using formal language and whose words often carry great political import. Last edited by Boomerang Flash on Fri Jun 13, 2008 7:12 am; edited 1 time in total |
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dirkusbirkus
Posts: 699 Location: Manchester, UK |
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I'm glad you've provided an objective viewpoint to my own here. I think a lot of what is 'epic' or not depends entirely on our personal view of what it means to be 'epic'. Boomerang has provided a solid literature benchmark with which we can analyse what constitutes 'epic'. I knew that someone would disagree strongly with my own definition of Eva as epic. I'm glad, however, that you chose to phrase it in an articulate manner and with counter arguments that make sense. Guess that's why I keep posting here, stimulating debate rather than pointless trolling. |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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Given epic's almost slang uses in current english, I feel I can describe almost anything good as epic, but I think by my definition there are very few I would actually call "epic".
Robotech: The Macross Saga I liked the other two sagas of Robotech as well, but I only felt that Macross Saga was really epic. For one thing, the whole thing took place on a giant ship with a city inside that rebuilt itself from leftover junk in the ship. Then, spoiler[after the majority of the planet is destroyed and the inhabitants of the SDF-1 finally resettle on Earth, they rebuild their city out of scrap AGAIN]. Then the way it deals with looking at the main characters of both the good and bad guys made the show really ineteresting, combined with the fact that spoiler[they clearly weren't afraid to kill off main characters from the good side]. In the end, it was a show with good characters, and interesting plot, and a sense of adventure, with the ship traveling to Earth and the people rebuilding their lives, even in the most unexpected of situations. This is the only anime I define as "epic", although I've enjoyed and adored plenty of others. |
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Rika-chama
 Posts: 87 |
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I believe you all forgot to mention Revolutionary Girl Utena I would consider this to be epic simply because of the complex storyline, the interesting characters, and how the series addresses gender roles in society.
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musk.stick
Posts: 42 |
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I agree with the poster of this thread, when they cited Death Note as one of the most epic anime ever. I know that a lot of people will disagree, especially since the show has become so popular, but that doesn’t change my opinion on it in the slightest. The storyline, the character design, the soundtrack, the fandom lulz that have stemmed from it (“Just as planned”, anyone?)and if all these things didn’t make for an epic anime, the chip scene is enough to push it to such a status.
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Randall Miyashiro
 Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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When I think of epic the Dune novels immediately come to mind. The anime that defines epic for me is easily Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Shows like Death Note and Evangelion just don't feel epic compared to them. The elements that define these as epic for me are:
For me the biggest factor for a series being epic is that it takes place in a distant land. It helps if there are multiple locations as well. For this reason series like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Star Wars films come across as being epic. I can't think of any epics that take place in modern America/Japan besides Noein (a good amount which takes place elsewhere) which compensates in other areas. For anime this applies to series like Crest/Banner of the Stars, Fantastic Children, Gunbuster, Gundam, Samurai 7, Wolf's Rain, Eureka Seven, The Twelve Kingdoms, and Venus Wars. Another big factor is the amount of time the series covers. This is a big factor for such films like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. This also goes beyond what we see on the screen and a very rich mapped out history that spans centuries add to a series' epicness. Anime titles that fit this bill include Banner/Crest of the Stars, Berserk, Fantastic Children, Gunbuster, Gundam, Princess Mononoke, Wolf's Rain, Blue Gender, Ergo Proxy, Giant Robo, Gungrave, Le Chevalier D'Eon, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Please Save My Earth, Utawarerumono, Scrapped Princess, The Twelve Kingdoms. Chrono Crusade, and RahXephon. Classic epics (Homeric) tend to have large ensembles in them. Once again something like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars fit the bill. This applies to both main characters as well as hordes of extras that are involved. I can't think of any epics that only effect a dozen people, with most epics involving wars between countries or empires. As for anime Berserk, Fantastic Children, Gundam, Noein, My Hime/Otome, X, Samurai 7, Le Chevalier D'Eon, Basilisk, and Eureka Seven. The whole idea of crossing dimensions or traveling through time is the final and most recent addition to what makes a series epic. Although this is really the first two categories taken to it's most extreme form. This works for series like Noein, Haruhi, and Fullmetal Alchemist. There are many series that I enjoy but don't follow the above formula so I would not consider them epic. The best way to describe epic that I can think of is that it is the opposite of slice of life titles. Going through the ANN Encyclopedia the only exceptions: 5 Centimeters which compensates in the time and space department and is only marginally epic compared to the epic Place Promised. Planetes which has both the alien setting and global events occurring to make it marginally epic. The slice of life moments actually work against and balance out the epic moments. This actually works in the series favor much like it does for the less than epic (but also good) Patlabor. I really am not even sure if either of these series really qualify under slice of life. |
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Randall Miyashiro
Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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Indeed Giant Robo is definitely epic in scope. I love how the seven part OAV seems like a chapter in a huge story involving dozens of heroes with their own legacies. There is also the fact that the entire Earth is in danger which also helps in it's epic feel.
What does popularity have to do with how "epic" a series is. There are a good amount of epic anime that really suck like Nazca, the X movie, or Harmageddon. I feel as though they all have plots that are vast (in a bad way) and incorporate too many characters compared to Death Note which only seem to focus on one character and is limited to it's time and space. I don't know exactly what would constitute as epic for character designs. The only thing that I can even imagine would be something like Fist of the North Star type style since this is how I imagine the main characters from the Iliad, Gilgamesh (not the anime) or Beowulf would look like. Most of the traditional epic heroes are larger than life and are physically strong. This is definitely up to interpretation since epic hasn't been traditionally used for visual styles and is mainly used for elements in the writing. Light just doesn't fit the image of an epic protagonist in any of the traditional sense since antiheroes go against the definition of an epic hero. Likewise I don't think the idea of epic is completely defined for music, although I believe that many epic films like the Ten Commandments, Lawrence of Arabia, and Ben Hur help define what the epic OST consists of. I really don't think that Death Note follows the tradition of epic soundtrack and think that the Lord of the Rings score is probably the closest thing in my mind to a modern epic soundtrack. I'm not sure what you mean by the fandom lulz but once again if this is a reference to it's popularity I once again restate that there are a good number of both unpopular and poorly made epic anime. I really have been enjoying the Death Note DVDs and think it's the best thing that Viz has released since Saikano. I fail to see how it is considered an epic series. |
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Ramadahl
Posts: 325 Location: MK, UK |
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It seems that recently epic is just a synonym for cool, and you get lots of people saying a show was epic, when they just really enjoyed it. I'll definitely agree with Legend of the Galactic Heroes, easily the first epic show that sprang to mind. Nothing else I've seen comes close in terms of scope and scale. One other show that could possibly be considered an epic is Kaiba. You've got a hero travelling from world to world in pursuit of a quest, overcoming obstacles on the way. |
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Boomerang Flash
Posts: 1021 |
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If you're going to present a series of criteria by which an epic is identified and reject the choice of others based on this definition, you should probably make sure that the criteria do not exclude major epic works.
The Song of Roland is written by the French and takes place on the borders of France and Spain. Most of the Iliad takes place outside the walls of a single city. If you want to refer to distance, the only unifying characteristic of epic poems is that they take place in the distant past.
The Song of Roland takes place in the span of a few days.
How did you manage to write down "Homeric" and not remember that the Odyssey is an entirely personal journey with very few characters and not many extras? The number of faceless characters who comprise NERV easily exceed those who were on Odysseus' ship or comprise the suitors staying in his house? Paradise Lost is another example of of an epic with very few characters (Satan, God, Adam, Eve, Rafael being the major ones and Michael, the Son, Beelzebub, and some other fallen angels being the minor). Although there are extras, they are no longer seen outside of Book I. If you want an objective list of criteria by which one judges whether an anime is epic, you need look no further than r-18's post. The only exception is item 4, which the Song of Roland does not follow--except in the abstract sense of trial by combat at the end. Of course, item 6 needs to be generalized to writer, since the format is no longer a poem. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Any other anime anyone mentions here will fails in comparison in terms of epicness. To deny this fact is to state your failure. Not to say there are other epic anime, just nothing on the same scale. |
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