What Anime are you Currently Watching?/Anime Recommendations

[CRTGAMER]

I regrettably haven't been updating to this thread all year. Woops! So here's an anime I watched recently:


Blade Runner Black Out 2022 | 2017 | 9/10

Blade Runner Black Out 2022 is an OVA directed by Shinichiro Watanabe. It serves as a prequel to the live-action film Blade Runner 2049. The plot here concerns rogue Tyrell replicants that orchestrate an EMP blast offer Los Angeles, which resulted in the great Black Out. Afterwards all replicant production was banned and the Tyrell Corporation went bankrupt, only for the Wallace Corporation to acquire the company and restart production of a new model a decade later. Black Out 2022 has high production values, excellent animation, great direction, and works well as an important link between the original Blade Runner and 2049. It's very impressive how much action, emotion, and meaningful plot was crammed into the short runtime. As a fan of Blade Runner I really enjoyed this OVA.

Nice! Just downloaded all three of the mini prequels and trailer for 2022 for watching later on. The other two videos are live action clips looks to be from 2049; all three have an intro by the director. Also captured downloaded off YouTube, a very cool "Small Details" review video that show some neat trivia connecting 2049 to the first movie. Deckard's original gun rediscovered from a fan who bought the original prop!

Might burn all MP4s to DVD for big screen, but maybe when Blade Runner 2049 hits Bluray it will have the prequel videos? Doubtful the small details video will make the 2049 special edition cut.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Run ... k_Out_2022

Blade Runner Black Out 2022 is a neo-noir cyberpunk anime short film directed by Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop). The short is one of three short films, alongside 2036: Nexus Dawn and 2048: Nowhere to Run, that serve as prequels to the live-action film Blade Runner 2049. It debuted on 27 September 2017 on Crunchyroll

[Xeogred]

Thought this was a random fun read:
My Life as a Late-90s Otaku: How Being an Anime Fan in America Used to Be Very, Very Different

[Exhuminator]

Living in a rural part of the USA, being an anime fan in the 90s was difficult, especially the early 90s. I used to drive hours to malls in bigger cities to buy VHS tapes. I used to mail order VHS anime from Right Stuf catalogs. And yes, I did VHS to VHS dubs of whatever anime I could rent from local shops. I had to work hard to watch anime back then, but that made it seem more special than today, as now I can just download whatever whenever.

[Xeogred]

I'll never forget the ~$100 VHS sets of a show... even the ~25 episode shows would get that price point.

At the time I wasn't hardcore into anime for the fansub tape scene, but I definitely remember downloading ridiculous fansubs for Real Player off Kazaa and stuff or something haha. The DBZ fansubs were so bad but unforgettable.

Years ago one of my uncles owned the "uncut" VHS set of DBZ, from the Saiyan saga up to what was out at the time, I think some of the Android stuff. Had a family vacation when I was young back then to Chicago and all I did was marathon DBZ in his basement area. It was pretty awesome seeing this huge shelf with a wall of DBZ images formed by the VHS sets. I remember hearing "Damn!" from Dende when the Namek Dragon was summoned I think... hardcore!

Secretly watching the mature anime when family were around was totally a thing, haha. Ninja Scroll was pretty iconic back then I guess, that was one of them that almost got my friends and I in trouble. The hentai stigma was pretty strong I guess. But yeah it was hilarious how no retailers had a clue, there was always hentai right out in the open at Hastings and I think even Blockbuster might have had some questionable stuff at times.

Anticipation of what new shows we'd get was such a cool thing too. Along with long running shounens like DBZ, having no clue as to what was ahead and all you could do was speculate or find the wackiest websites or magazines dedicated to the most ridiculous fan fiction imaginable. With DBZ though, a lot of it sounded very plausible.

Fun little nostalgia trip with that article.

[johnblade]

Ah the good old day where to get the anime show is either to tape them when it air on TV (for me it's YTV) or rent or buy the VHS on video shop which you realize it isn't cheap and you might spend so much money than you expected. I am still watching anime still but like the link author,I am not up to date with the new show now.

Also, I am looking for obscure anime now for some reason even if it isn't great. Just got myself this VHS anime which isn't release in DVD. The sequel (or telling did)

[marurun]

I discovered anime in the early 90s, but didn't really get into it until probably '96, when I went to college. When I was studying in Japan in '98 I bought a cheap (for Japan) used VHS of the first episode of Escaflowne and fell in love. When I got back to the states in '99 I sent off some video tapes to get a fansub (because those weren't distributed on the internet, yet) of Escaflowne, and then when Bandai finally released the series in the US starting in 2000 or 2001 (I can't remember exactly) I made sure to budget enough money to buy each volume on DVD when it was released. Despite my tight finances in college and the first few years of my first job, I definitely took advantage of RightStuf specials and local used stores to build up a collection. I was somewhat discriminating, but not as much as I should have been. Later on I started getting rid of stuff that didn't have nostalgia value to me or wasn't high quality enough or aligned enough with my interests. I haven't bought anything new in years, except the final, decades-later made episodes of the Tenchi Muyo Ryo Ohki OVA series. I had the original Pioneer boxed set release and I wanted to finish that, even if the later episodes weren't as good.

These days it seems that a lot has changed in the anime market, both in Japan and in the US. I'm definitely out of the loop except for stuff I randomly watch steaming in Netflix.

[Exhuminator]

These days it seems that a lot has changed in the anime market, both in Japan and in the US. I'm definitely out of the loop except for stuff I randomly watch steaming in Netflix.

I'm still in the loop as far as keeping up with what's new every year, but 95% of it I have no interest in. The art styles and animation of today IMO often don't match up to the quality of the 80s and 90s. And don't even get me started on today's anime writing. Now that's not to say some quality stuff doesn't still get produced these days, sometimes rarely it does. But the golden days of anime are over I'm sad to say. I don't get depressed about it though. I still watch a couple new shows and movies every year, and I've still got tons of stuff to watch from 80s and 90s I haven't seen yet.

As for what I liked in the 90s... I was never into Sailor Moon, Digimon, or DBZ. That stuff was too kiddy for me. I mostly watched mature rated movies and OVAs. My favorite anime in high school (1993-1997) was stuff like Ninja Scroll, Ghost in the Shell, Robot Carnival, Urotsukidoji, Endless Summer, The Wings of Honnêamise, F3, Battle Angel, Plastic Little, and Akira to name just a few. I didn't start watching anime TV series until the 2000s strangely enough.

[bmoc]

My wife and I finally got Crunchyroll subscription this year. Been watching Dragon Ball Super a lot recently. I'm about 20 or so episode from being caught up.

Thinking back, I am pretty sure it was Dragon Ball Z that first piqued my interest in anime. I caught a few episodes on UPN (Atlanta) somewhere around 1996-97 . Where I lived, UPN reception was spotty at my house and kind of depended on the weather. The few episodes I was able to see were plagued with lots of static. I got a new computer with a DVD-ROM for Christmas 1997 and the first DVD I got was DBZ Tree of Might. I'm pretty sure I would occasionally rent anime from the local Blockbuster but I remember their selection being pretty bad. Most of their stuff was the ultraviolent type that my parents did not really approve of.

When I went to college in 99, it was practically an anime renaissance. I had regular access to cable tv for the first time which meant Toonami and Scifi channel anime movies. I met a few people who were into anime as well and we shared what we had. I had a bit of disposable income and ordered from Rightstuf and Robert's Anime Corner Store regularly. I had a knack for buying up anime that ended up airing on Toonami only a few months later. Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, and Escaflowne to be precise (I guess they got a deal on those Bandai animes).

After college, I almost never bought much anime because I was so poor. Even after cheap box sets became common place, I just did not have the cash for it. I torrented a few fansubs until streaming services started carrying anime. Now I pretty much stick to streaming. I keep Miyazaki movies in my Amazon wishlist so I will get them as gifts on occasion but I can't recall the last time I purchased a physical copy of anime on my own.

[isiolia]

I usually feel like if I was really trying to keep up with anime, then I'd likely still be finding a show or three per season to follow. Maybe not the biggest/most hyped ones, but something. I just usually don't, even if I wind up enjoying things if/when I get around to watching them. So it's less the fault of the industry, and more just that my interests have shifted.
As much as it seems to be a matter of shows catering to increasingly narrow niches, or being trope-ridden trend followers...that's more or less been the case since I can remember. Perhaps I remember a lot of the late 90s/early 2000s shows being good because that's when it was all new to me, and (likely) because the selection was still a bit more filtered. There's probably more that manages to get on Crunchyroll/etc now than fansub groups would have been interested in picking up back then.

[bmoc]

There's probably more that manages to get on Crunchyroll/etc now than fansub groups would have been interested in picking up back then.

I can attest to that. My wife watches some weird shit on Crunchyroll that I just have to shake my head at.