What are you watching/or completed? (Anime)

[O.Supreme]

I have the ADV set, but I'll have to watch the movie before showing him. Yeah it's been a while since I watched it. We just finished the series though. I have a ton of older stuff to finish as well. Voltes, Godmars, Baldios, Ideon ( was just trying to by them all before they went oop.). I also have God Mazinger coming this week. For once I can actually say I have everything current on my Amazon wish list. I still have about 6 items, and I'm sure it will coni to grow but they are all pre orders.

[Garasharp K7]

I haven't watched the movie in a long time. Almost a decade now, I think. I adore the series - it's one of my all-time favourites - but I'm not overly fond of the movie, especially as it doesn't tie up any of the loose ends from the series, creates a bunch of new ones by jumping forward in time a few years and is a bit of a downer to boot. I don't hate the film, but I did find it rather disappointing compared to the series. Plus Yurika's hardly in it. That's the biggest strike against the flick in my book.

Regarding Ideon being OOP, someone over at the Fandom Post forum reached out to Sentai on Twitter about the situation with Ideon, Votoms and Patlabor and they mentioned they were actually just out of stock right now. You can see the thread I'm not sure what's up with Discotek's releases though. I've noticed a fair few of 'em are getting harder to find now. I'm glad I picked up Baldios when I did.

Anyway, I just started SSSS Gridman now. Thinking back, it was interesting seeing the various reactions from folks during the show's run. Plenty of kaiju and tokusatsu fans loved it, (and I certainly count myself among them) but a good chunk of anime fans seemed to be split into three groups: Some simply dismissed it as just another robot show and left it at that; some would fixate on the fanservice, and quite a few folks took note of the various references, the scene compositions in some episodes or the way the series manages to recreate the look and feel of tokusatsu through a mixture of 2D and CG animation. I saw plenty of cool comparison videos showing all the references to not only the original Gridman or Ultra series, but many super robot shows as well. Loved how Gridman and his support units had this '80s/'90s look to them, like something from the Brave series. I'm not too crazy about CG in anime most of the time, but I was genuinely impressed with it here. The monsters looked great as well.
I shouldn't be at all surprised, but I couldn't help being bemused how some fans saw SSSS Gridman as an anomaly - sort of a "whoah! you got tokusatsu in my anime!" reaction - and not some kind of throwback to the old shows that had plenty of kaiju or toku influences. Like the myriad of '70s, 80s and '90s super robot series, Gatchaman, Hurricane Polymar, The Guyver, Giant Robo, The Big O to name a few. Or even Evangelion for that matter.
I'll grant you not everyone would be aware of the older stuff, but having watched so many shows and noticed how the two mediums have often influenced each other over the years, I can't help rolling my eyes when people act like anime and tokusatsu are both mutually exclusive. Oh well, I'm having a blast revisiting Gridman anyway.

[O.Supreme]

I enjoyed SSSS Gridman, especially all the Transformer Easter eggs. But it and InfiniT-Force are both a bit pricey IMHO, especially for such short series. Normally I'd wait for a sale, but it seems some items are getting shorter production runs as noted. I will probably just skip them if they don't go down in price, but I'd certainly like to have them in my collection

[O.Supreme]

My son started to get into Dancouga, but I guess I can assume he got bored with it, since I saw him watching Gundam Seed on his phone . I understand the easy with which you can watch things on your own device, but when I have them on DVD or Blu ray I just have to shake my head.... To be fair, when we watch TV as a family we all take turns, and he says he can watch them *faster* on his phone. I keep telling him to enjoy the journey. Sure its nice to binge episodes once in a while, but remember the days when you could only get one episode a day? or one per week? Now a days we have most series to watch in their entirety at our leisure (unless its something new) , no need to speed through them all.

[EricDent]

Yeah I remember getting single volumes of shows on VHS & DVD...

Speaking of binging, I did that for the 7 Seeds show via Netflix.
Assuming there will be a second season eventually since this one ends on a cliffhanger...

I also tried to watch the 2nd season of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K via Netflix, however due to the size/speed/color of the subs (the 2nd season isn't dubbed for some odd reason) it was hard to keep up.

[lhb412]

I just got my Blu-ray of the Giant Robo OVA from the 90s and holy crap! I knew the series was well-liked and it being relicensed was kind of a big deal, but just by watching the first episode I thought "why isn't this an even bigger deal?!" Even though it's a direct-to-video series it feels so cinematic. The animation is so great and the scale so enormous in that opening setpiece and the music is so grand. This didn't feel like a series. It felt like a movie!

Although it's obviously super indebted to Super Robot shows and 60s and 70s anime there's also a huge tokusatsu influence.

[O.Supreme]

Glad you are enjoying Giant Robo. I've had one version or another since back in the VHS days. I got the DVD set that has both English dubs, still have nostalgic feelings for that first dub. It's my understanding that the Blu-ray gas both as well, but does it have the Ginrei special? It's not that great, but It would still feel like an incomplete set without it

My son finished Gundam Seed and went straight into Destiny. I don't have the heart to tell him how inferior it is.

[EricDent]

Tried a couple of shows via Tubi.
Not sure if I will continue some of them.

Astro Boy (1980s version): was decent looking, but a little lacking in the action dept.

Magical Meow Meow Taruto: looks really cute, so I might get back to it.

Actually I Am: Looks like a harem anime with various "monster" girls. Main vampire girl is cute, just not quite feeling it.

No Game No Life: started on Tubi, but switched to Netflix since they have the dub. I will continue this one, cause it seems interesting, just not gonna binge it.

[EricDent]

Picked up a copy of Season 1 Part 1 of That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime (Blu-Ray) from a local Half Price Books.
They are having a 20% off your entire purchase coupon through Sunday.
It was about $20 after coupon.

[EricDent]

Blasted through the Slime show, and now I will grab Part 2 (on sale) eventually.
Looks like it's getting a second season in Japan soon, so I will grab that eventually as well.
So far it's very fun, and fills in more fantasy in my anime collection.

I also did a random movie/anime night and watched part 2 of Macross Plus.
Still really good show with amazing music & visuals.
Kinda wish that Harmony Gold crap would go away so we could get a legit (non Japanese) Blu-Ray of that, cause it's probably AMAZING in HD.

Other than that, still slowly going through No Game No Life via Netflix (they have the dub).
Pretty fun show so far.

On a whim I tried some old '90s OVA called something starting with "T" Travelers via Tubi TV.
Basically it kinda looked like a mecha to start, but something about a teacher, a student, and a space pirate going on an adventure to try to get back to Earth.
The school the teacher/student was assigned to shut down due to financial trouble, and of course the space pirate crashes into the abandoned building.
It was rather odd, but it didn't really catch my interest. Might try again later.

[Dr Kain]

I watched the first disc/six episodes to Fate/Zero today. First off, I had no idea this series took place in the real world. I thought it was supposed to be some fantasy universe, so that took me by surprise. Secondly, oh god was the first episode pretty much just a exposition dump and it went on for 45 minutes. With that out of the way, I've been enjoying it quite a bit thus far. The concepts are interesting though I can't say the regular characters outside of the serial killer have grasped me at all right now. The Servants, on the other hand, do intrigue me, especially trying to figure out who they are. Obviously they tell you some of them right away like King Arthur, Alexander the Great, and Gilgamesh, but it's annoying me that I cannot figure out who Lancer and Caster are. It's too soon to know the identities of the Assassin Guild people and Berserker though. The soundtrack is wicked good and the animation is really top notch. It's a shame this series is not in 5.1 as it isn't even that old, so not having a 5.1 audio track is really inexcusable.

Oh, there is one thing I find weird. Bill Clinton is the president, yet HDTVs exist and TV shows are broadcast in 16x9. Huh? Those didn't come out until 2000 and TV shows did not start being broadcast in 16x9 until like 2002.

[O.Supreme]

I was surprised they actually added Future Avengers to Disney+. It has the typical kids and toyetic nature of standard anime fare for kids, however the animation blows away any Disney Marvel cartoon of the past right years, and is far more exciting, not dull ad dishwater MCU rehash.

[Dr Kain]

We watched episodes 7-15 of Fate/Zero tonight and damn, things are really heating up here. My favorite episode is the one where Alexander, Gilgamesh, and Arthur are just sitting around drinking and talking. That was a lot of fun, but the highlight was of course watching Alexander use his special ability to call on his armies in an illusionary world. That was friggin awesome!! I need to ask though, is that the end of Assassin? Because it feels kind of disappointing that I never found out their identity. It's also a bit saddening to see Ryunosuke go, but they really took his character as far as they could, so no surprise there. Interesting that they picked Gill de Rais to be Caster considering the show Drifters proclaimed he was an innocent man set up by the church whereas this one keeps his child killing nature. Speaking of Ryunosuke, the episode with Rin was excellent too.

My favorite line of the show has to be from the air force pilots. "If this were a monster movie we'd be the first to die as the audience waits for the main character to show up." Oh my god that had me laughing so hard.

Gilgamesh and Alexander continue to be my favorite characters, but it is nice to see more of the masters finally take precedence.

[superhedorahsaiyan]

currantly finishing the third season of Castlevania, then I plan on returning to Ultraman.

[Dr Kain]

We finished Fate/Zero today. Outside of an odd ending the show was pretty damn excellent! I'm not sure it's a show I would ever rewatch, but I'm so glad I finally was able to sit down with it. I think this summer I might borrow my friend's copy of Unlimited Blade Works next. I was a little disappointed with the fate of Alexander, especially since I guess he doesn't show up again, though I hope to see Waver in a future series as he ended up being the best master in the show. Emiya was just a "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" up individual all around, so I'm kind of glad things didn't work out the way he wanted them too.

[EricDent]

Just in case most of the Fate stuff is available on Netflix.