What Anime are you Currently Watching?/Anime Recommendations

[marurun]

Unfortunately, that set is missing lots of the extras that come on the individual releases.

[darsparx]

Still...just being a fan of his movies those are all that really matter to me at this point. Sure if I rehooked up my vcr(that oddly enough could be used as a switch almost) I could watch kiki's and I'm half tempted too. Just wish Miyazaki would make it clear he's just taking vacations since he's obviously not going to actually retire until he's dead. He's making that very clear at this point

[MrPopo]

Yeah, I don't really care about the extras since I never watch them anyway.

[Sano]

Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle. Very good series, though short.

[Xeogred]

Been watching Noir which I heard a lot about back in the day. It's a bit dry so far. The two lead females don't stand out much.

[Exhuminator]

I'm still watching Golgo 13 TV. I'm on episode 29 out of 50 now. I still feel the exact same way as I did about the show last time I posted, at least it's consistent. I wonder, if you hired Golgo 13 to assassinate himself, would he do it? I mean, he's a professional after all.

[Xeogred]

I'm still watching Golgo 13 TV. I'm on episode 29 out of 50 now. I still feel the exact same way as I did about the show last time I posted, at least it's consistent. I wonder, if you hired Golgo 13 to assassinate himself, would he do it? I mean, he's a professional after all.

If the pay meets his quota!

Well hope I didn't scare you away with this and the City Hunter suggestions. I think you'll like City Hunter a LOT more, since it's got way more personality and knowing you, I bet you'll enjoy Ryo's perverted antics. It's all gags but he knows when to get serious in the end and each episode left me smiling.

[Exhuminator]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Golgo 13 TV is bad. It's highly decent. Just incredibly formulaic, yet with positives. I plan to do an indepth review when I finally finish all 50 episodes. I did acquire all the City Hunter TV episodes and films. I plan to check it out eventually. Gonna have to watch some short series after Golgo 13 though, between it and Master Keaton that's quite a lot of sequential episodes.

[Exhuminator]

And I finished all 50 episodes, so...


Golgo 13 TV |2008-2009 | 7/10

On Xeogred's recommendation, I watched this series recently. I watched the English dub version because I'm lazy and the dub was fine. Mixed feelings, but overall a decent series.



Good stuff: Excellent production values. Episodic nature keeps each episode's pacing tight and plot varied. Golgo 13 is definitely a professional through and through. Very mature themes, plenty of serious subject matter, also tons of violence and naked ladies if you want that. Watching Golgo plan out his attacks and carry them through to execution is often interesting in and of itself. Nice to see an anime about a Japanese man who is not just a highschool aged lady boy with nightclub hair crying himself to sleep because he can't handle his harem stress.



Bad stuff: Totally feels like a Japanese male power fantasy through and through. Golgo himself is like 6.5' and hugely muscular, Caucasian women throw themselves at him with reckless abandon. When they are shown having sex with him, he just lays on the bed emotionless, while they orgasm all over him... leading me to believe this is to insinuate he has a giant magic penis (a little disingenuous, but remember this is a power fantasy). Golgo drives extremely expensive sports cars and is obviously ridiculously wealthy. Male gaijins typically piss their pants just from his cold stare alone. Westerners are often portrayed as greedy shitbag racists*, or just military power hungry maniacs.**



Boring stuff: Golgo can never fail. Ever. Not even close. He always succeeds, never screws up a mission, and always comes out on top... usually millions of dollars richer with another lady bagged. He also has the magical ability to dodge bullets Matrix style for whatever reason. And that's fine, except it makes the show kind of boring. Who can get emotionally invested about a stone cold emotionless Terminator who can never lose? There's literally no tension and the only payoff is seeing how he executes his plan of attack. And Golgo only has two facial expressions; constipated or irritated.



Dumb stuff: So many plot-holes I don't even know where to start. One example is Golgo always makes a big deal about not letting people walk behind him. Yet he's shown all the time willingly walking into situations where people are behind his back, without him having checked them out first for weapons. (I guess his Terminator vision already scanned them I don't know.) Golgo 13 makes a rule of assassinating any client who talks about him having assassinated for them. And yet the entire world seems to know who Golgo 13 is, what he does for a living, and how to contact and hire him. A bit of a contradiction going on right there. There's plenty more examples I could make.



WTF stuff: I have to assume that Golgo is a serial killer, doing this for sadistic joy. The man has assassinated hundreds if not thousands of people, making millions off of almost every kill... meaning he's a billionaire a couple times over. He obviously doesn't need the money, but keeps on killing. So I have to assume he's just evil for evil's sake. Which would explain his nickname "Golgo 13", which is short for Golgotha (the place of Jesus' crucifixion), with the 13th apostle having been the traitor Judas (if you count Christ as the 1st apostle). This glorification of Jesus' death and betrayal is further exemplified by Golgo's icon... a skeleton with a crown of thorns, which I can only infer is to insinuate that Golgo thinks Jesus did not resurrect, but rather rotted away to bones. Yeah, Golgo 13 is not a nice guy.



Overall: If I sound like I did not enjoy the show, then that's not what I mean. I did enjoy Golgo 13 TV. But it's also a very formulaic show (see one episode, you've seen them all basically), and that can be a positive if you enjoy the formula. I simply had a hard time taking Golgo seriously as a real character (in stark contrast to how I felt about Master Keaton), so that impacted my ability to get involved in its plot. Also Golgo 13 is very much a nationalist Japanese masculine power fantasy, and that didn't resonate with me either. He's painted as an anti-hero I suppose. And that's why the ultimate question was never answered even after 50 episodes... would Golgo 13 assassinate a kid? I have to assume he would, after all he assassinated a wine bottle.

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**

[Exhuminator]

Human Crossing | 13 episodes | 6/10

Here's a 2003 anime series based off of a 1985 manga series. It's an episodic slice of life show, with each episode steeped in melodramatic tales of various peoples' every day life. While I totally appreciated the concept, the writing left something to be desired. Too many episodes have happy endings that come out of nowhere and are totally unrealistic. It all came across as soap opera material written by an optimist. Still, Human Crossing was worth watching simply because it was trying to do something different. And "different" is a quality I can always appreciate.