The All-New, All-Different Bore Anime & Manga Thread!

[Himu]

Man I fucking loved that show.

Sailor Mars remains the best, sorry.

[Great Rumbler]

I can't actually remember a single thing about Sailor Moon. 

[Mr. Gundam]

Looks like you guys were busy while I was putting up insulation in the basement.

My first real exposure to anime was a bunch of VHS tapes my cousins in Japan (US military brats) sent me. Watching raw unsubbed episodes of Zeta and ZZ Gundam as a little kid was awesome.

I remember always seeing EGM cover the import DB and DBZ games in 1991-1993, but I had no idea what it was about.

[magus]

Forgot the name of his other series which had the time-traveler chick going back to the present to stop some nerdy kid with DBZ-hair from becoming the "mega playboy."

had that too
it was called dna^2

some anime is pretty well known here like fist of the north star,captain tsubasa and mazinger,they did a lot of stuff,some of the smallest channel did stuff like city hunter and yatterman and cat's eye

other stuff they did was this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majokko_Megu-chan
and this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokimeki_Tonight
and this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaibutsu-kun

oh yea they also did this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg_Kuro-chan

[Himu]

I can't actually remember a single thing about Sailor Moon. 

Isn't that hilarious? Me neither. But I loved it at the time.

[Great Rumbler]

The first anime I watched were shows like Robotech and Speed Racer, then a few years later I watched shows like Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, and Sailor Moon. Stuff like that.

But the first "real" anime I watched were the ones I mentioned from the Scifi Channel when they used to show a bunch of anime movies.

[magus]

I can't actually remember a single thing about Sailor Moon. 

Isn't that hilarious? Me neither. But I loved it at the time.

the only thing i remember about sailor moon is that

1) every episode was the same
2) except the final one where EVERYBODY DIES!

lupin 3rd is also pretty well known here

[Mr. Gundam]

I remember scrounging up enough money to get subbed tapes of Evangelion and Cutey Honey in the mid to late 90s... those fuckers were expensive!

My cousins also sent me Space Runaway Ideon taped off Japanese TV... 

[Himu]

The FIRST japanese animation I watched was either Speed Racer or that Koala show on nick jr.

The ones that made me a FAN were DBZ, Robotech, and a slew of various stuff show on Sci-Fi.

What made me a FANATIC was Rurouni Kenshin.

What made me question the hobby and made me less of a fan were Green Green, Midori no Hibi and Onegai Twins.

[magus]

now that i think about it,they also did cardcaptor sakura once
but i think they stopped it before the ending...
heck does it even has an ending?

oh oh we also got this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsurikichi_Sampei

[Himu]

It did. I don't remember what it was though.

[Himu]

Looks like you guys were busy while I was putting up insulation in the basement.

My first real exposure to anime was a bunch of VHS tapes my cousins in Japan (US military brats) sent me. Watching raw unsubbed episodes of Zeta and ZZ Gundam as a little kid was awesome.

I remember always seeing EGM cover the import DB and DBZ games in 1991-1993, but I had no idea what it was about.

Remember when gaming was niche enough they'd put import shop ads at the back of the magazines?

[magus]

some other stuff they did here

slam dunk
trigun
yu yu hakasho
excel saga
GTO
karekano
master mosquiton (i don't think this one is know at all,it was about a vampire who would get super powers by sucking the blood of the girl that awakened him)
Golden Boy
Blue Submarine no.6
escaflowne

[Great Rumbler]

now that i think about it,they also did cardcaptor sakura once
but i think they stopped it before the ending...
heck does it even has an ending?

Cardcaptors 

[Bebpo]

First anime I watched was EVA on VHS fansubs

EVANGELION

[Mr. Gundam]

Looks like you guys were busy while I was putting up insulation in the basement.

My first real exposure to anime was a bunch of VHS tapes my cousins in Japan (US military brats) sent me. Watching raw unsubbed episodes of Zeta and ZZ Gundam as a little kid was awesome.

I remember always seeing EGM cover the import DB and DBZ games in 1991-1993, but I had no idea what it was about.

Remember when gaming was niche enough they'd put import shop ads at the back of the magazines?

Oh yeah, all those mythical games from Japan that were so expensive you thought you'd never get to play them.

First anime I watched was EVA on VHS fansubs

EVANGELION

I still have my Berserk and Kodomo no Omocha VHS fansubs from my freshman year of college...

[Himu]

some other stuff they did here

slam dunk
trigun
yu yu hakasho
excel saga
GTO
karekano
master mosquiton (i don't think this one is know at all,it was about a vampire who would get super powers by sucking the blood of the girl that awakened him)
Golden Boy
Blue Submarine no.6
escaflowne

I loved a lot of those.

I know it's not generally accepted but I HEART Kare Kano anime.

[youtube=560,345]XPQ28v-_cLY[/youtube]

 

[Great Rumbler]

I liked Kare Kano, but the budget must have been like several pennies, during the later episodes especially.

[Himu]

I love the manga too, but it totally jumps the shark.

[Purple Filth]

now that i think about it,they also did cardcaptor sakura once
but i think they stopped it before the ending...
heck does it even has an ending?

They edited the hell out of this thing 

It actually ended via the manga. The anime version ended via the second movie.

I loved a lot of those.

I know it's not generally accepted but I HEART Kare Kano anime.

[youtube=560,345]XPQ28v-_cLY[/youtube]

 

i liked it too, so much i read the manga to finish the story.

The opening music was 

[Himu]

the opening song was wtf. Reminded me some crazy 80's openings.

[Mr. Gundam]

Some of the music from Kare Kano is in Eva 2.22.

[Himu]

No way

[Mr. Gundam]

Way.

[Purple Filth]

Some of the music from Kare Kano is in Eva 2.22.

Really?

well they are both Gainax.

As for Eva i never watched it until it showed on Toonami edited to hell (although i knew about it way before that) finally watched the entire series and the movies sometime after and was like "wtf did i just watch  "

[Great Rumbler]

the opening song was wtf. Reminded me some crazy 80's openings.

[youtube=560,345]25H--2ZPpOA[/youtube]

No way

I noticed it too.  

[Mr. Gundam]

Some of the music from Kare Kano is in Eva 2.22.

Really?

well they are both Gainax.

As for Eva i never watched it until it showed on Toonami edited to hell (although i knew about it way before that) finally watched the entire series and the movies sometime after and was like "wtf did i just watch  "

Check out Rebuild. Eva 1.11 is ok, but 2.22 is awesome.

[Purple Filth]

the opening song was wtf. Reminded me some crazy 80's openings.

[youtube=560,345]25H--2ZPpOA[/youtube]

So awesome 

Some of the music from Kare Kano is in Eva 2.22.

Really?

well they are both Gainax.

As for Eva i never watched it until it showed on Toonami edited to hell (although i knew about it way before that) finally watched the entire series and the movies sometime after and was like "wtf did i just watch  "

Check out Rebuild. Eva 1.11 is ok, but 2.22 is awesome.

yea i need to check these out to see what has changed.

[Mr. Gundam]

Aside from the ending, 1.11 is pretty much identical to the TV series. 2.22 throws everything out the window.

[Purple Filth]

Aside from the ending, 1.11 is pretty much identical to the TV series. 2.22 throws everything out the window.

Cool, will check out then.

I heard they changed Asuka's Lastname and added a glasses girl but that's all i know. Should be interesting

[Bebpo]

Aside from the ending, 1.11 is pretty much identical to the TV series. 2.22 throws everything out the window.

There's slight changes throughout 1.11
For one thing, the Shinji in 1.11 isn't a whiny bitch, which goes a long way!

[bork]

The first anime I watched were shows like Robotech and Speed Racer, then a few years later I watched shows like Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, and Sailor Moon. Stuff like that.

But the first "real" anime I watched were the ones I mentioned from the Scifi Channel when they used to show a bunch of anime movies.

We all watched anime before we knew it was...anime.     Akira is the first one that I remember being marketed as "anime" and it was fucking mind-blowing.  Saw it in either '89 or '90 and there was simply nothing else like it available.

I remember scrounging up enough money to get subbed tapes of Evangelion and Cutey Honey in the mid to late 90s... those fuckers were expensive!

Even a tape with a 30-minute running time would still be like $40.  It was crazy!

I remember always seeing EGM cover the import DB and DBZ games in 1991-1993, but I had no idea what it was about.

Yeah, and all the fan art and letters they'd show with Super Saiyajins.  I kept wondering why people would draw the same dude with his weird haircut of varying lengths.     For some reason, it never hit me that Super Sonic in Sonic The Hedgehog 2 was taken from DBZ until years later.  But those DBZ fighters...man...the store I worked at specialized in import games.  That's where I first played them.  EGM used to hype them up, and so I was pumped to try one out...

...AND IT SUCKED.     Shit game play.  The only cool thing was doing super fireballs.  Total dud games.  Hyper Dimension was the only good one they made on 16-bit.  Up until recently, really, your average anime-to-game conversion, especially those made by Bandai, were always assured to be fucking garbage.  Fanboys ate that shit up though.

Remember when gaming was niche enough they'd put import shop ads at the back of the magazines?

$150-$200 for a single SFC or Mega Drive game, yeah.   

[Mr. Gundam]

Import gaming is still incredibly niche, though.

[Great Rumbler]

Aside from the ending, 1.11 is pretty much identical to the TV series. 2.22 throws everything out the window.

There's slight changes throughout 1.11
For one thing, the Shinji in 1.11 isn't a whiny bitch, which goes a long way!

The best thing about Eva 1.11 was that they cut out 95% of the scenes with Shinji whining!

[bork]

Import gaming is still incredibly niche, though.

It's had its ups and downs.  From work experience, I can tell you that it was a lot bigger back in the 32-bit era.  Fighting games in particular were HUGE, since a lot of them would come out months upon months earlier than in the States.  We sold so many copies of Tekken 2 (originally priced at $120!) because it came out a good eight months ahead of the U.S. version.  Tekken 3 was about six months earlier.  The Capcom games were always huge, especially the Saturn ports.  People went nuts over X-Men Vs. Street Fighter in particular.  Import N64 games were also big during the first year of the N64's life, since people were absolutely starved for anything new.  It was big during the PS2/GC era (nobody imported anything for XBox), but as piracy grew, sales went downhill.

Nowadays quite a lot of stuff comes out here that you wouldn't expect to, companies do simultaneous releases, or even release games in the States or Europe before Japan.  But you've still got stupid-crazy people like me who will pay more to have a game even a week earlier out there.

[Mr. Gundam]

I'm talking more about importing games that never get released outside Japan.

I'd love to see the numbers of Japanese copies of games sold in the US compared to the domestic sales in both Japan and North America.

[cool breeze]

First time I knew I was watching 'anime' was probably mid-90s.  1997 is when I got more into it when Dragon Ball Z aired on UPN and my friends also got into it.  We pooled our money and bought most of the episodes and movies on VHS.  Before that and getting into other series, I've seen the usual things like Speed Racer, Robotech, and so on.  I also remember watching Ranma 1/2 in another country when I was younger (Germany I think).  I mean, I'm not old and my options to watch anime was very limited.  I remember some sites had episodes to download that were a whopping 34.7mb, while old cartoon network used to show anime in the afternoons, and the local video store used to have a small selection.  Things are so much easier even when it comes to buying anime in stores.

I remember always seeing EGM cover the import DB and DBZ games in 1991-1993, but I had no idea what it was about.

Not early 90s, but I still have the magazine ad for Dragon Ball GT Final Bout (plus the game)

It is incredibly cheesy and says something like "how did this lethal weapon get through customs?"

It is a really bad game, btw.  Even as a young dragon ball fan, I thought it was trash.  Luckily my friend imported Dragon Ball Z Legends and that totally rocked.  I still have a couple ps1 anime game imports from that time because it was easy to play them on an original PS1.  Char's Counterattack was one of my first import games and I still cherish that game.

[youtube=560,345]jQHCJY5tn7M[/youtube]

[Himu]

[youtube=560,345]pI-zXj13CTQ[/youtube]

this game

[Mr. Gundam]

My first import game was Jet Set Radio on the Dreamcast. I sat out on console gaming during the PS1/N64 era. The DC was what got me back into things.

[Mr. Gundam]

http://forest.kinokuniya.co.jp/ItemIntro/641116

Gundam UC volume 2 released on November 12th in Japan.

[Bebpo]

(Image removed from quote.)

http://forest.kinokuniya.co.jp/ItemIntro/641116

Gundam UC volume 2 released on November 12th in Japan.

probably same day US

[Mr. Gundam]

Amazon has had a volume two placeholder for a while now, I'm sure it's going to work just like volume one.

[Joe Molotov]

Too long.

[bork]

Not early 90s, but I still have the magazine ad for Dragon Ball GT Final Bout (plus the game)

It is incredibly cheesy and says something like "how did this lethal weapon get through customs?"

It is a really bad game, btw.  Even as a young dragon ball fan, I thought it was trash.  Luckily my friend imported Dragon Ball Z Legends and that totally rocked.

It made DBZ Ultimate Battle 22 look good!   

Total shit game.  I'm sure I've posted this before, but we would sell tons and tons of copies of the Japanese version (and later the U.S. version when they finally did re-release it...hard to believe, but at one time the American version was insanely RARE and sold for a few hundred bucks!).  We'd tell customers how bad it was and they'd buy it anyway.  Even in front of the boss...he'd just nod his head and say "see this?  These guys are telling you this in front of me, but I don't care.  The game sells."  And the customer would buy it, bring it home, likely hate it, and sell it right back to us.   

[youtube=560,345]pI-zXj13CTQ[/youtube]

this game

Sucked.  The Saturn version of it was an "improvement" and even then it sucked.  Garbage game.  Good soundtrack though.

IMO the best DBZ games are Legends, Hyper Dimension, SuperSonic Warriors, and Super DBZ.  The latter played pretty nicely and even got an arcade release, but bombed miserably. 

My first import game was Jet Set Radio on the Dreamcast. I sat out on console gaming during the PS1/N64 era. The DC was what got me back into things.

Damn man, you missed out on a great era!  (Well, N64 aside that is  Playstation and Saturn rocked.)

My first import game was the "Twinbee Yahoo Deluxe Pack" or something like that for the Playstation.  It was bought from the store I ended up working at.  I think that was the first game I ever bought there and I had been going to the store for like two years.     There used to be an arcade in the same shopping center that I'd go to and when I ran out of money, I'd go there and bug them to try out games.  They had the PSX and Saturn in '94 on demo.  Anyway, I went in looking to see about importing Street Fighter Zero, and found out it wasn't out for several months, so I got the Twinbee game and then later went back for one of those Live Power Pro games.  Street Fighter Zero was my first mark-out import moment though.  It was released in December '95 IIRC, a few months ahead of the States.  I played the shit out of it.  From there I ended up importing more games than I bought domestic ones.

[Mr. Gundam]

I was in high school and just didn't care about video games for the most part. There were other things that were more important (music, girls, etc.) I played FFVII in high school and VIII in college on my PC, but that was my only exposure to consoles until I got the DC right before starting college. Once I got my PS2 in early 2001 I went back and bought up a ton of stuff I missed out on.

[bork]

I'm talking more about importing games that never get released outside Japan.

I'd love to see the numbers of Japanese copies of games sold in the US compared to the domestic sales in both Japan and North America.

Yeah, that's what I was saying-- it's more niche now because so much more stuff gets localized.  I think these are the only import-only games I have for the current-gen systems:

-Musou Orochi Z (PS3)
-No More Heroes (360)
-Otomedius G (360)
-Queen's Blade Spiral Chaos (PSP)
-Ikkitousen Eloquent Fist (PSP)
-Ikkitousen Xross Impact (PSP)
-Ridge Racers 2 (PSP)
-Tenchu 3 Portable (PSP)
-Tenchu Kurenai Portable (PSP)
-Tenchu Shinobi Taizen (PSP)
-Shinobido Homura (PSP)
-Gokumakaimura Kai (PSP)
-Parodius Portable (PSP)

13 games.  But look at this list.  Musou Orochi Z is just Warriors Orochi 1 and 2 combined.  Out on other systems.  No More Heroes is a Wii port-up.  Ridge Racers 2 is a minor upgrade to the original and it came out in Europe.  Tenchu Shinobi Taizen and Shinobido Homura also both came out in Europe.  Gokumakaimura Kai is a minor upgrade to Ghouls N' Ghosts.  Tenchu 3 and Kurenai Portable are just ports of Tenchu 3 and Fatal Shadows.  The only games that are not available in any shape or form in English are Queen's Blade, both Ikkitousens, and Otomedius G-- and the latter is getting its sequel released here. 

That's a really small number compared to the amount of J-only games I have on PS1, Saturn, PS2 and GC.  It seems like all that's really left these days that never gets localized are shitty uguu~ dating sim style games and various types of RPGs. 

[bork]

I was in high school and just didn't care about video games for the most part. There were other things that were more important (music, girls, etc.) I played FFVII in high school and VIII in college on my PC, but that was my only exposure to consoles until I got the DC right before starting college. Once I got my PS2 in early 2001 I went back and bought up a ton of stuff I missed out on.

I was all over video games because I was working at that game store-- couldn't escape them.  I had students and even teachers coming up to me asking for hook-ups.   

But back then I was like 90% fighting games.  My friends were all into them too.  There were still arcades to go to! 

[Mr. Gundam]

Oh, I don't think we're understanding each other. I'd love to see how many people actually import games from Japan. It can't be a very big number, and I'm guessing it's never been anything other than a hardcore niche contingent.

As for my current-gen Japan-only titles, I have:

PS3
Initial D Extreme Stage
Mobile Suit Gundam Battlefield Record U.C. 0081
No More Heroes: Heroes Paradise
Power Pro Baseball 2010
Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan!
Another Century's Episode R (NEXT MONTH!!!)

DS
SRW W
SRW K
SD Gundam G Generation DS
SD Gundam G Generation Cross Drive
Ouendan
Mobile Suit Gundam 00
Emblem of Gundam

PSP
Fafner
Gundam vs. Gundam
Gundam vs. Gundam NEXT Plus
Gundam Battle Universe
Gundam Battle Chronicle
Eureka Seven
Mini Pato
SD Gundam G Generation Portable
SRW A Portable
Gundam Bonds of the Battlefield Portable
Gundam Assault Survive
Evangelion JO
Rezel Cross
Ikkitousen Eloquent Fist
Power Pro Baseball Portable 3
Macross Ace Frontier

[Himu]

Ultimate Battle 22 did suck, but for some reason it was still fun a  bit. Probably on Bloody Roar level.

[bork]

Ah, I see what you mean now.

Well, again drawing from work experience, the PSOne was very popular for imports during the first few years (because of the swap trick and then chips...later on with converters people would only bother for the three DBZ games).  In Summer '95 before the PSX was released in the States, the store had a unit at Dragoncon with Toshinden...the line was MASSIVE.  We'd go to Dragoncon the next few years and always sell out of the all-import stock we'd bring.  Tekken 2 was a massive hit.  Nothing else was ever quite as large.  I do remember selling a surprising number of Japanese N64s before the system was released here.  We put up a big sign saying "ULTRA 64 IS HERE!!" and people flocked to the store.  Some dude from a Nintendo corporate office even came in to check it out.  That Xmas season, Mario Kart hit Japan with a multi-colored controller.  We sold the game and controller for about $200 a pop and sold right out.  These weren't hardcore game freaks shelling out, but game-starved customers and soccer moms.

The Japanese Dreamcast didn't have that kind of impact (it didn't launch with much of anything; VF3tb being the only good game) until Soul Calibur hit in summer '99.  People would see it on demo from outside the shop and come in wide-eyed.  PS2 also didn't have much at launch.  Nobody cared about the Game Cube.  I don't remember GBA being in demand until the domestic release.  PSP garnered interest but they were hard to get and expensive, and gone were the days of people shelling out hundreds and hundreds of dollars for systems.  (When we got Dreamcasts, they sold for $1200.  Nobody bought any until the price fell to around $900.  I think all the consoles at release were in the $500-$1000 range.) And that was about it for import systems during my time there. 

Also just looking at the amount of interest online and the number of import shops that were around, imports were at their peak in the mid-late 90's, and fell off in the 2000s.  Piracy and emulation definitely played a part in this, but how large is the question.  Some like NCS have hung in there and seem to be going strong.  Others, like Buyrite Games are thankfully dead and gone.  They were so fucking shady.

[bork]

Ultimate Battle 22 did suck, but for some reason it was still fun a  bit. Probably on Bloody Roar level.

Bloody Roar is better.  :p

[cool breeze]

It made DBZ Ultimate Battle 22 look good!   

Total shit game.  I'm sure I've posted this before, but we would sell tons and tons of copies of the Japanese version (and later the U.S. version when they finally did re-release it...hard to believe, but at one time the American version was insanely RARE and sold for a few hundred bucks!).  We'd tell customers how bad it was and they'd buy it anyway.  Even in front of the boss...he'd just nod his head and say "see this?  These guys are telling you this in front of me, but I don't care.  The game sells."  And the customer would buy it, bring it home, likely hate it, and sell it right back to us.   

Sucked.  The Saturn version of it was an "improvement" and even then it sucked.  Garbage game.  Good soundtrack though.

IMO the best DBZ games are Legends, Hyper Dimension, SuperSonic Warriors, and Super DBZ.  The latter played pretty nicely and even got an arcade release, but bombed miserably. 

yeah, I remember the time when the US release of Final Bout sold for a lot.  I was sad when it got a re-release and it didn't feel like I had some golden poo that people would spend too much money on.

there are actually a lot of solid anime games.  Biggest problem are games with yearly releases that add a few characters each time.  There is a Bleach Heat the Soul 7 for PSP; that is more than one a year and all the sequel adds are new characters as they appear in the manga/anime.

Then there are games like Getbackers on the PS2.  No words.

oh, and yeah, Ultimate Battle 22 is really bad.  It's a shame about Super DBZ because that game is really fun.

[bork]

Yes, now you've got anime-licensed titles that are decent, good, or even great.  I'm talking about years back, during the 16-bit and 32-bit eras mainly.  Sooooo much crap.  Most of it Bandai.

[magus]

Ultimate Battle 22 did suck, but for some reason it was still fun a  bit. Probably on Bloody Roar level.

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

also bloody roar 2 was friggin awesome

[Ichirou]

The best Dragon Ball 2D fighter was Hyper Dimension:

[youtube=560,345]V8kKL4za33E[/youtube]

[Junpei the Tracer!]

I want to see Kare Kano after seeing the opening. Looks neat.

[Great Rumbler]

I want to see Kare Kano after seeing the opening. Looks neat.

I't really good, but the animation, especially in the later episodes, looks like it was animated with a budget of a few pennies.

They did the best they could with what little money they had, but it's painfully obvious, like when they have TWO recap episodes back to back. 

[Mr. Gundam]

 

Also just looking at the amount of interest online and the number of import shops that were around, imports were at their peak in the mid-late 90's, and fell off in the 2000s.  Piracy and emulation definitely played a part in this, but how large is the question.  Some like NCS have hung in there and seem to be going strong.  Others, like Buyrite Games are thankfully dead and gone.  They were so fucking shady.

I used to order from The Rage a lot, but they went away sometime in the early to mid 00s.

[Purple Filth]

Ultimate Battle 22 did suck, but for some reason it was still fun a  bit. Probably on Bloody Roar level.

That game was garbage

The best Dragon Ball 2D fighter was Hyper Dimension:

[youtube=560,345]V8kKL4za33E[/youtube]

people liked this but i never saw the hype. Preferred DBZ Legends anyway.

[Mr. Gundam]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]