Bennett the Sage / Anime Abandon

I like hearing about old-school anime I wouldn't necessarily know about otherwise, and I like some of Bennet's jokes and style.

but HOW?

Same here. and 75% of his output is stuff people would never review or talk about. And I really like that. It's the same thing I like about the Cinema Snob. Like, who else is going to review "Sins of the Sister" and its ilk?

Honestly I disagree, there is a lot of experimentation. However its done on the manga level and not at the anime level but even then a lot of those will make it to animes, pretty much the same as it was before.

edited 15th Aug '17 7:08:27 PM by Memers

,

Me Too!. XD

edited 15th Aug '17 3:58:21 PM by BearyScary

I liked it better when Questionable Casting was called WTH Casting Agency

@JHM & @Memers: We are talking about anime original stuff But ok, if you don't buy it, let me list you series from latest season

• Mahoujin Guru Guru = comedy about jrpg hero going on to journey to defeat demon lord
• Hajimete no Gal = fan service show
• Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e = high school anime with totalitarianism
• Gamers! = romance anime but with gaming theme this time
• Reflection = Oh hey Stan Lee doing stuff with Japan again
• Chronos Rulers = fight demons something something time
• Tenshi no 3P! = Hikkimori helps lolis set up concert or something
• Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni = Isekai with smartphones! That has no sense of how stupid the idea is
• Princess Principal = so apparently group of little girls are spies or something
• Centaur no Nayami = probably most experimental of this bunch aaaaaaaand its manga adaption
• Hitorijime My Hero = boys love
• Shoukoku no Altair = faux historical fantasy war anime I hear?
• 18if = some sort of dream world adventuer thingie
• Action Heroine Cheer Fruits = ...too lazy to even describe this one but something cutesy
• Ballroom e Youkoso = So this is that sport anime adapted from manga with dancing as sport or was that another one?
• Made in Abyss = This is manga adaption too, so no anime original experimentation points
• Vatican Kiseki Chousakan = mystery show with catholics priests huh
• Dive!! = I think this is trying to cash on free huh
• Saiyuuki Reload Blast = another demon fighting show. Kind of weird since wasn't that thing in 90s mostly
• Konbini Kareshi = another romance show but "with a this theme this time"

Okay, seriously, can I stop this now? This is fricking tiring and only reason I do it is to make a point "most experimental anime nowadays is done by adapting experimental manga and that is much safer than making original experimental anime" and that even then none of stuff has same exploitation movie feel in terms of grotesqueness and whatever the hell is Messiah's finger crawling up to someone's crotch

edited 16th Aug '17 7:59:01 AM by SpookyMask

There might be less anime original content overall true but there has always been a shit ton of just CRAP out there in each season it has not changed. The same time Macross and Zeta Gundam were airing an anime about 6th grades stripping and sexually harassing their teacher was airing.

And the stuff he reviews about 90% of it is not Anime Original at all, they are still manga and occasionally novel based.

edited 16th Aug '17 12:32:19 AM by Memers

I don't think saying stuff like this about people's opinions is allowed on the forums, since it can be interpreted as an ad hominem. Might be better to say you just disagree with their opinions without the implied dismissive attitude.

Geez, that's a huge block of text. Can you reformat it into something a bit more readable please?

edited 16th Aug '17 12:10:10 AM by dragonfire5000

I don't really have any other way of putting it. Animes has always been like this, only like 1 to 2 shows per year are long term standouts and unique while the rest are usually forgettable or just plain crap.

We in the west only got anime filtered through companies looking at things in hindsight, nowadays we simply get every single show legally or illegally.

All those vaunted animes are 30 years of shows filtered into just a few standouts.

look at the anime from 1991◊ There are 2 series that aired that year that got released in the west. The rest are so obscure that not many have even The Other Wiki pages and after digging they are mostly hopelessly unoriginal.

edited 16th Aug '17 1:18:29 AM by Memers

@dragonfire: Nope. Well, okay, I do that, but only because I try to be polite

@Memers: Again, you think show about stripping is on scale of tying grenades to your pubes in term of "Geez, we gave animators too much freedom"?

Wait, What??

Edit: Oh, sorry, thought you meant you brought that as example of anime original weird experimental stuff, you just brought it up as example of anime original crap .-.

Just to note, I haven't at any point argued that quality of anime has dropped, I've just said its valid to miss old days of anime because its true that they don't produce same variety of weird shit anymore.

edited 16th Aug '17 9:04:58 AM by SpookyMask

I'd say 18if is pretty experimental. It's (apparently) based on a game, but it seems more like its adjacent to the game.

Each episode is directed and written by someone different and out of the first three episodes, the first is a surreal comedy thing that doesn't exactly work, the second is a very gruesome revenge fantasy and the third is an extremely well done tragic romance. I haven't gotten around to watching the rest yet, but a style-juggling anthology that uses the basic premise as a jumping-off point is pretty unique in anime.

And to be completely blunt, a lot of the more unique stuff that showed up in previous decades were sub-par OV As that were made because there were no meaningful standards for direct to video releases. A lot of it was only considered classic because it was the main type of thing that was being released in English for a long time because, well, the licenses were dirt cheap. (That isn't to say that there weren't a lot of actually good things getting released, just that there was a lot more garbage than people sometimes want to admit.) To Sage's credit though, he doesn't usually sugarcoat the crap.

Oh, and if you want to watch something recent that's completely insane, try Vatican Miracle Examiner. It started out with pretentions of class but turned out to be completely demented. There's also Hand Shakers which is just a gigantic pile of "what the hell, why would you do that?"

edited 19th Aug '17 5:28:31 AM by Zendervai

Not Three Laws compliant.

You guys are frustrating to debate with sometimes

So just to check, does everyone agree that modern anime doesn't produce as much weird shit because quality has improved along with supervision and that its okay to miss bizarre old days? Yes/No?

Depends on what your standards for "weird shit" are.

From the way I see it, animation has changed. Experimentation is possibly not what I would say has changed the most, however. Most of the changes, I would say, are in quantity and focus. There are more people making more shows and more of them make it overseas than ever before. It kind of blends together after a while because there's just so much of it. Focus isn't as easy to pin down simply because trends change so much from year to year. The current trend toward moe stuff and reincarnation fantasy and what have you were completely non-existent ten or twenty years ago. What people look for in anime then might be completely absent from anime now just because its not in vogue anymore. Hyper gory anime just doesn't work as a selling point right now because you can't air it on television and its easier to push other genres. Companies can't risk that their product might be considered boring, either. It has to push merchandise. Blu-rays, figures and whatever. That's the market right now.

Obviously, there will be exceptions. I'm pretty tired, so I'm not even sure if I'm phrasing this in an understandable way. The environment things are produced in right now is different. Better or worse is subjective. If someone doesn't like the way things are made right now, I wouldn't say its illegitimate. Possibly misaimed, but not wrong.

After Not-Dragonball, here's Dragonball

Bennett dissed the Buu Saga. He's dead to me now.

(videl is the best and i will fight anyone who says otherwise)

edited 19th Aug '17 7:49:42 PM by EndlessSea

but HOW?

~SpookyMask: I thought you would say something like this, and my counter is that you're only looking at one metric of experimentation and "strangeness," which is original television anime with outlandish premises. But before a certain elephant stepped into the room, there were basically non-existent, with OV As being home to most of the original material coming out and that being in large part violent schlock. In the wake of that behemoth you had a massive bumper crop of wild shit on TV, because producers had confidence that even if it didn't make bank, an original production with a bold enough premise could still keep out of the red. Over time, though, original anime series became just another part of the landscape; the same thing would later happen to light novel adaptations.

Why I think that considering this alone is hokum is because it denigrates so many other variables in what can make a series groundbreaking and adventurous, and I think that the growth of the industry is financing something of a coming renaissance. Consider if you will that Kunihiko Ikuhara, an incredibly strange and inventive director, essentially dropped out of animation entirely during the '00s, only to produce what will soon be as many series as he did in the '90s in the present decade. Or how Kyousougiga, a series of truly bizarre ON As, was greenlit for television with a mostly young and untested cast. Or the continuing success of the brilliant Masaaki Yuasa, producing some of his most striking work to date with Ping-Pong. Or how the -monogatari train is still going and is wildly popular despite or perhaps because it is inscrutable. Or how Space Dandy was practically a different show every episode, ranging from total abstraction to film-quality detail through every shade of comedy. Or—

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

The amount of anime by volume actually hasn't changed that much, the timeslots have stayed the same for 50 years, its the amount of series that have changed. Back in the 70s to 80s a 50 episode anime was the norm so you could get a 50 episode anime out of damn near everything. Anything shorter than that would be a 12 episode OAV series.

Nowadays we got the 12 episode anime being standard 24 episodes for major series and 50 episodes are next to unheard of thus x4 the series but same volume total.

There are some directors that get really creative with their content like Akiyuki Shinbo of Studio Shaft that manages to turn some really plain works into something really unique.

As I had said before only 1 or 2 series per year make it into the lasting category.

edited 19th Aug '17 9:24:37 PM by Memers

Watched the review of Twilight Of The Dark Master. Can't believe Bennett didn't mention that the hero actually destroys the world.

@JHM: Doesn't really change my point, I asked "Do you guys think its okay to miss type of strangeness from particular era" and you are just replying with "hey things are still strange, but in different way"

Like, I don't actually agree with Bennet's opinion, I think hes kind of grumpy in "I miss stuff from when I was young" way, but I think its okay to miss particular style that isn't a thing anymore

He also didn't mention that the director went on to be incredibly prolific and influential.

That's fair. I just felt like you were conflating several things which I think are fairly distinct. And personally, I do think those kind of unhinged premises still have a place in this period of anime even if they aren't quite so thick on the ground. Kill La Kill immediately springs to mind.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

I wouldn't really call Kill La Kill unique though, it was literally a Spiritual Remake of Cutey Honey.

I've been binge watching old Anime Abandon episodes.

Do you guys remember how used to be animated segments for skits? I had totally forgotten about those.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

...I don't remember at all >_>