- Created By bellpickle
I'M A DISGRACE
SHAMEFUL
MIYAZAKI DIRECTED ANOTHER MOVIE AND I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT IT???
AND IT'S ALREADY BEEN A YEAR SINCE IT WAS RELEASED IN JAPAN! WHAT THE CRAP HOW DID I NOT KNOW.
Lists.
Yesterday, I gave some serious thought as to what, exactly, my favorite anime series are. I haven't had a no.1 anime for the past three years, not since I watched RahXephon a whopping 3rd time through and realized that I liked figuring out the show more than I liked the show itself. And since then, I've found it difficult to rank anime; I often feel that the anime I like most are comparable in quality as well as in the enjoyment I felt while watching them. Thus I usually group anime into clusters instead of ranked lists... but after finishing Touch yesterday, I think the no.1 position is finally filled. For reasons I'll go into when I write about the show in greater length, I feel that Touch stands just a head taller than the other anime I like most both in terms of how much I respect what the show accomplished and how much I loved the sheer experience of watching it. (A balance of the two is more difficult than it may seem.)
So here are the lists. I decided to restrict the manga and anime movie lists to my fav. one or two, since my selection pool is admittedly small for both. ^^;
Manga
1. Berserk
2. Angel Sanctuary (Despite being a bottomless fanservice pit.)
Anime Movie
1. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (OMG IT'S NOT GHIBLI!!!!)
Anime Series
1. Touch
First Tier (*closer to the top of the list)
- *Berserk (Manga's better, absolute mindfuck that it is, but I think the anime still deserves this spot. And at least Griffith's voice is hot?)
- Claymore
- Gankutsuou
- Kaleido Star
- *Monster
- *Princess Tutu (Before Touch, this was closest to being on the top, period. But sometimes I feel that this show is almost too precise and carefully executed. And if only I liked Mytho and Rue more...)
- Rose of Versailles
- Twelve Kingdoms
Hon. Mentions because I'm weak (Second Tier, but worth mentioning.)
- Gurren Lagann (Almost got bumped up. I respect the hell out of this show, but the last arc was the only one I *loved* as much as I did any of the first-tier series. Case in point, I pressed the pause button on this show for a whole year b/c, after the bathhouse episode, I thought this anime was too Gainax-y for my apparently sensitive tastes.)
- Honey and Clover
- Ouran HSHC (I don't think this show is all that great on a technical level [the Kyouya-centric episodes are the only ones I rewatch for anything other than a good laugh], but there are few other series I enjoyed watching as much as this one.)
Oh. And my favorite live-action movie is The Dark Knight and my favorite video game is Resident Evil 4. (Haven't gotten around to playing the fifth one...) Factor in Berserk as the top manga and a baseball series as the top anime, and hey--I'm practically a guy!
I also started up an anime queue at the end of the school year, though turns out it's less of a queue and more like a randomized list of shows that I think I should check out eventually. Since summer began, I think I've added more shows than I've crossed off!
Anime
H2
Slam Dunk
Koko wa Greenwood
Maison Ikkoku
Marmalade Boy
Simoun
Daughter of Twenty Faces
Kanon
Kurenai
Big Windup!
Toradora
Baccano!
Victorian Romance Emma S2
Manga
Vinland Saga
Red Blinds the Foolish
The Key to the Kingdom
Sand Chronicles
20th Century Boys
If anyone has a fervent recommendation for any of the above, feel free to voice it. :)
Tatsuya Uesugi
*Note: Tatsuya is the soda-drinking boy/grown-up baseball player. Kazuya is his twin brother exercising in the beginning. ...I've applied to part-time jobs at, like, nine different companies.
HIRE ME, MOTHERFUCKERS.
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P.S. I stumbled upon this website last night and LOVE it already. Careful where you highlight; due to the nature of the website, every page is filled with spoilers.
And Touch is amazing. Have I mentioned that already?
Cross Game vs Touch
I've had a very busy past three days, surprisingly enough. I saw Drag Me To Hell last night, which was... entertaining, but not amazing or anything. I'm a little curious as to how it got the rating it did on Rotten Tomatoes. I'm guessing the horrid trailer convinced critics to prepare for the worst, but instead they all were pleasantly surprised by its watch-ability?
I haven't been able to watch more than a few episodes of Touch lately because of how unexpectedly busy I've been, but I'm currently around episode 32. I find the baseball differences between Touch and Cross Game really worth noting; I feel like the differences in baseball, though seemingly superficial at first, connect to different themes of the respective series.
EDIT: (Those of you unfamiliar with the storyline of Touch might want to check out the quick, but excellent summary of the series over at ANN. Kudos to the writer for not giving anything away, as many others are much more careless when introducing Touch to others.)
For example, in Cross Game, most of the significant teams have a remarkable ace pitcher as well as a defined slugger, whereas so far in Touch, the pitcher gets all the attention. And this makes sense in the context of each series: Touch is almost entirely centered on the individual development of both Kazuya and especially Tatsuya, whereas Cross Game is more team-oriented. (ex. Wakaba's Koshien dream wasn't only centered on Kou, whereas Minami's Koshien dream really did only involve Kazuya.)
Also, Cross Game focuses a LOT on the speed of Kou's pitches (which makes sense b/c of the whole 160 km/h landmark that they keep bringing up), whereas in Touch, it's just generally acknowledged that Kazuya and Tatsuya throw fast pitches. The latter series (at the point I'm at) has a much bigger focus on the control of the pitches. This is logical as Tatsuya is such an inexperienced pitcher, but it could also be seen in a figurative sense: Tatsuya is only just now starting to have direction and take "control" of his life, despite all of his raw talent (as shown through the velocity of his pitches). After all, why is it that Kou of Cross Game has very few issues with control even though he, too, has little experience pitching during the first few episodes? Looking at it from this angle, the series' focus on Tatsuya's issues with control might have to do with the fact that, unlike Kou, Tatsuya doesn't really have his shit together in regards to his personal life, and so he doesn't have his shit together when it comes to baseball either.
Also, I must say I'm VERY impressed that, despite being a Tatsuya sympathizer, Touch makes me care about both him and Kazuya, even though their situation pits the two against each other in pretty much everything. I was all prepared to resent Kazuya... but then I couldn't. Because when Tatsuya himself loves Kazuya so much, how in the world could I feel any differently? :(
And all this baseball anime has so gotten to me that I read an article in the newspaper about the recent Cubs vs Sox game. What have I become!
