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Just as a quick note, in my top 3 (cited at the 113:20m mark) I was actually reffering to the You're Under Arrest OVA, which holds up significantly better than the first TV series (which is still fun, but nowhere near as good as the original 4 episodes OVA).
I'm also glad that I wasn't the only one mentioning Crest of the Stars, which I always felt was terribly underrated.

Thanks a ton for doing this guys, it was super entertaining, and you totally made me just order the Patlabor 2 dvd set! Can't wait to watch it, sounds awesome.

I just snap ordered Memories, despite having never heard of it before. Curse you podcast!

I like Patlabor 2, but I didn't think it was the greatest movie ever. Though part of that, maybe, came from watching 1 and 2 back-to-back with no previous exposure to Patlabor, so the tone shift left me confused.

Looks like my top 3 didn't get read (probably buried in the pile of similar lists), which was Utena, Evangelion, Tylor.

The central thing you have to remember about the Evangelion ending is this:

"Instrumentality" (achieved in a process called "Third Impact") is *consistently* portrayed as a "bad" thing.

Its like the Twilight Zone episode where the guy is stuck in a casino where he wins EVERY time, and he realizes he's in hell, because its not really "gambling" that's boring if you win every time.

A big point in Eva was the difficulty people have communicating, overcoming our interpersonal boundaries.

I an really excited and appreciative about how you guys summed up Shinji: yes, he is suffering from clinical depression and his brain physically isn't thinking properly. Shinji is introverted. Asuka is extroverted. All of their attempts to "communicate" throughout the series end in failure (Shinji is too shy to approach Asuka; while retroactively, you realize that Asuka's bullying and need for attention from Shinji was her clumsy, clumsy attempt at human contact).

So basically, "Instrumentality" -- the Big Happy Hive-Mind -- is a new state of existence where all souls/consciousnesses merge into one.

And what we see of this, in End of Eva's hallucination scenes or in episode 26 of the TV show.....is that its like a poorly written sitcom (you half expect a laughtrack to start running) where NOTHING bad can happen.

Ultimately, Shinji realizes how fake this was, and rejects it.

****Pay attention to the dialogue between Shinji and his mother in the last 5 minutes of End of Eva. I know that its sort of a blur at that point because the visuals are overwhelming.

But quietly, Shinji just says to Rei/Yui "wow, that was really fake. I'd rather go back to my miserable life with Asuka berating me, because at least I knew that what few happy moments I had were real".

This was Yui Ikari's plan all along, why she *volunteered* to be bonded to Eva-01 -- there are different ways to achieve Third Impact, and the idea is that if they did the version centered around Eva-01....the pilot of Eva-01 would be at the center of the maelstrom, as it were, and in a position to choose to reject Instrumentality.

***Shinji hasn't doomed the human race and the close of End of Eva. Yui clearly stated that "anyone else who wants to come back can come back", Shinji and Asuka just happen to be the first.

The other major assumption is that he was trying to "kill" Asuka. He wasn't.

We mostly got this from a trading card description from Japan....but if you think about it, it entirely fits their OVERALL character arcs:

Shinji strangled Hallucination-Asuka during Third Impact and she didn't resist because she was just a figment of his mind, not real.

Shinji is strangling Asuka because he's kind of freaked out after the MOON SIZED REI AND GIANT CROSSES AND BEING SWALLOWED BY CITY-SIZED GENITALS.

That tends to freak a guy out.

So basically he's worried that its still Instrumentality and he's "still in the Matrix" as it were.

So he's choking Asuka in the hope that she will try to fight him off.

Shinji, the ultimate introvert who fears rejection, is now begging for and CRAVING a sign of rejection to prove that this is indeed reality. He's finally come to understand that life has pain in it. (if Asuka had passed out he would have stopped).

ASUKA, meanwhile...her character arc was that she's an extrovert who can only communicate through fighting, who hides inside this shell of aggressiveness to hide her inner insecurities.

She goes *above and beyond* Shinji's expectations, "resisting" him but not by fighting and calling him stupid....she lovingly caresses his cheek to implore him to stop.

Just stop for a second and think how utterly out of character they're both behaving, how unusual this behavior is: because they've finally advanced in their character arc, and taken the first steps to being mature adults. Shinji learned to not fear pain, and Asuka learned to show compassion without thinking it a sign of her own weakness.

All's right with the world.

Last edited by _V_ on Wed Jun 20, 2012 12:27 pm; edited 1 time in total

@Bamboo Last time I was on ANNcast, I did ask Zac why there's no Blu Ray of Evangelion. He suspects internal problems on the Japanese end.

Also how The End of Evangelion's license expired and we can only hope SOMEBODY picks up the license.

animenewsnetwork.com/anncast/2011-11-11

"Entry Plug" - the cylindrical cockpit thing they insert into an Eva's Unit's spine, which the pilot sits in. Despite the anal fixation displayed in this podcast, anime academics like Mechademia have pointed out how this is kind of vaginal/womb imagery (they even breath oxygenate fluid inside).

"Plug Suit" - the wetsuits the pilots wear. Intentionally designed by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto as essentially a dare to the cosplay community; it was meant to be so fanservice-y that no one in their right mind would wear this.

"Dummy Plug" - an autopilot system based on "blank" clones of Rei Ayanami (they don't have souls so they're just lifeless flesh). This is enough to "trick" the Eva into synchronizing with it and turning on.

However, if you look really hard during The End of Evangelion, Mr. Toole is incorrect: the Mass Production Evas are actually based on clones of Kaworu.

So somewhere out there Seele has a tank filled with naked Kaworu clones. Fujoshi rejoice.

Tenchi wrote:

I'm also the guy who included the Pretty Sammy/Magical Project S on my list. There are all sorts of anime I could have included (probably the You're Under Arrest OVA if we had been allowed to list four), but I went with MPS because I consider it to be kind of a pinnacle as being the first show to really cash in on the allegedly unexpected popularity of Sailor Moon with the otaku male audience, and I think it's one of the primary, if overlooked, proto-moé shows that helped to define the moé niche. Back when I first discovered anime websites in Japanese circa 1996, Pretty Sammy was the big new thing. I'm also more prone to list the Magical Project S TV series than the Pretty Sammy OVA series as the TV series aired in "family hour" and, as such, the creepier sexual elements of the OVA were very toned down. And they didn't try and shoehorn every other Tenchi Muyo character into every episode, unlike the OVAs, so the focus was much more on Sasami and Misao.

There is a fairly direct line of descent from Pretty Sammy TV to Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.

And Misao is pretty much Fate Testarossa's ultimate ancestor.

ABCBTom wrote:

I'm really sad nobody mentioned this series, as I feel it's too unique to be forgotten, but I love Key the Metal Idol. Maybe Theron can testify to it better than I, but it's such a unique show. It goes off the rails, but some of the images and ideas in that show are just incredible.

I regret not sending it in for the podcast, so it wouldn't be forgotten.

I liked it too, but I think it came up once on Anncast and I think they said (to paraphrase)'it pooped the bed.' So It may have been better this way.

I'm surprised no one mentioned Golden Boy! Sad

tangytangerine wrote:

Asterisk-CGY wrote:

Soooo, anyone read the explanation to the years of circling he wrote for Ah My Goddess?

It's probably because he doesn't know to end to the series. That's more than likely why he works on other stuff like character designs for video games in between(like Sakura Wars).

I can see why someone had the 90's Ah! My Goddess OVAs on their list. Since it condenses, somewhat, the introductions that first tv season spread out for around 14 episodes into 3. Plus it was the only thing, besides the movie, that used the original character designs before they shifted to what is seen in the 2 tv seasons.

I'm kinda shocked how many times G Gundam was listed. Much like Zac mentioned in Part 1, there was too many tournament fights to keep my interest in that show. That V Gundam mention had to be a troll post, as anyone who's seen the show will know how bad it is.

AMG isn't about wanting to make the plot hurry up anywhere, it's been 24 years and only a few significant advancement have happened between the characters. It's obvious Fujishima just likes to keep it nice and quiet in that story, until recently. I just can't get over good and juicy that spoiler[recent plot revelation is that the contract between Belldandy and Keiichi effectively neutered him. It might have been a recent development for the last few chapters because he's getting tired of the same old, or it could have been there from the start and he's just kept it under wraps. Either way, it means all copycat manga which present similar situations of a quiet and nonsexual nice guy is surrounded by beautiful exotic women who inexplicably dig him, and yet he does little to become romantically involved are all fraudulent. Keiichi has an explanation, regardless of how untimely it may be, for acting in that fashion. Those characters do not, they're now just terrible characters.]

To be fair about the character designs, they shift in the manga as well. There's graphics out there that show Belldandy's progression throughout the years, and it does definitely change noticeably every few years.

I think the lack of variation on the list is the same for what we saw coming from the 80s, people actually haven't seen that much 90s anime aside from the bigger titles or whatever was on Cartoon Network. So you get Cowboy Bebop and Utena hitting most of the top lists.

Cheesecracker wrote:

I own the Eva movies. I keep hearing how the DVDs were crap. Is it possible that is just nitpicking insider talk? I watched one last time I heard this statement and didn't really have a problem.

How big is your screen?

Quote:

Gatsu said:

Walw: I'm in the GITS > Patlabor 2 camp. The former works, because it condenses Shirow's uber-wordy techie manga into an actual story. And it makes me like characters who are generic as hell in the manga. ANNCast'ers said it best: Patlabor 2 is just an excuse to slap the Patlabor name on a different movie. So most of the characters I've come to know and love are incidental to the story. [Especially Clancy, who is my favorite in the series.] Furthermore, there's a reason Shinobu doesn't get much focus in the rest of the series: she's a boring character who basically serves as Goto's foil. Yeah, Patlabor 2 "predicted" the AUM sarin attack and 9/11. But like Eden of the East, it fails to analyze the impact of such attacks on the public at large. It's very insular. So I don't feel any sense of urgency in either narrative.

I realize we're talking opinions here, but color me confused.

I don't think that the story of Patlabor 2 is tangential or fails to relate to the show at all; it's set years after it, features characters who are in vastly different places in their lives, and conveys their emotional reactions to events in a fantastically subtle but believable way. They're pawns in a horrifying chess game, but they're not screaming lunatics about it. I actually think Otah exists to parody such reactions, and Nishi's reaction to his attitude is a rebuke of his trademark ire. For me it actually allows me an orthogonal look on the series that prevents 'more of the same' syndrome.

As for failing to analyze the attacks on the public at large, I just don't see that. Yeah, it's slow and maudlin, but the film devotes very large amounts of time to analyzing the different attacks, and in fact the heft of the film comes from it. By the time the army is in Tokyo and the people have to deal with them on a day to day basis the scope of the events are self-evident. It's not swept under the rug at all, despite the (admittedly thick) introspective tone of the production.

GITS to me always felt like Patlabor 2 Mark Deux; despite liking it, it felt extraordinarily light on script and heavy on flash, and a lot of the lugubrious pacing and tracking shots seemed to have been executed so much more deftly in P2. Eden of the East isn't even in the same league. It's shiny-happy-twee terrorism, and has none of the frightful false peace concepts at work. Great production values, though.

fireaxe wrote:

Just as a quick note, in my top 3 (cited at the 113:20m mark) I was actually reffering to the You're Under Arrest OVA, which holds up significantly better than the first TV series (which is still fun, but nowhere near as good as the original 4 episodes OVA).

I was about 50/50 on either mentioning the You're Under Arrest OVAs or mentioning the Magical Project S TV series but decided to go with Magical Project S on my list simply because I thought it was far less likely to have been included by anyone else, so I'm glad you mentioned the You're Under Arrest OVAs. I certainly enjoy the YUA TV series too, but it was obviously done on a much slimmer budget than the OVAs, which have some of the most beautifully-animated cars and motorcycles I've ever seen in an anime production, and, while there's some noticeable early 1990s-quality CGI with the highway bridge supports in episode 2, the animation of the vehicles themselves appears to be totally hand-drawn.

walw6pK4Alo wrote:

Cheesecracker wrote:

t;]I own the Eva movies. I keep hearing how the DVDs were crap. Is it possible that is just nitpicking insider talk? I watched one last time I heard this statement and didn't really have a problem.

How big is your screen?

Non-anamorphic widescreen anime. Hate it. That's why Perfect Blue and End of Evangelion so badly need re-releases.

_V_ wrote:

The central thing you have to remember about the Evangelion ending is this:

[.

Thanks for that. Brings back memories--it was these elements of raw and naked emotion that drew me to Eva back in my late teen/early adult years. The show's courage to show their main characters in an emotionally and mentally unflattering light really helped resuscitate what was, IMO, a creatively weak decade for TV anime up until 1995. Most shows--even today--are too worried about making their characters "likeable" and "safe" for mainstream consumption. Evangelion may have been unsubtle at times, but it was a much needed slap in the face.

I guess I really should revisit Macross Plus and the first couple Patlabor movies. I believe I saw all of them around the same time in the mid-2000's on Cable stations (at one point IFC was showing absolutely anything touched by Oshii) and I think I rated them a while later as "Decent." It's quite possible I was rating harsher at the time and possibly I was in a poor mood, the fact is I do have decent impressions of what I saw but I remember very little specifics of any of the three. All I really remember is realizing that the third Patlabor movie wasn't as good... yet I rated it the same.

I could probably appreciate them all much more now.
[edit] your Patlabor hype was just too strong to resist... added to the fact that I knew that those limited editions are still apparently available for $10 apiece here, it's just not something I could pass up.

In the 90's and into the aughts I was much more obsessed with music than anything else, (except maybe Vertigo-type "mature" comics) and spent a good portion of my extended college years as a late night and Americana college radio DJ.

Picking favorite songs is too hard so I'll go with favorite albums and highlight some of the best tracks.

XTC - Nonsuch (1992) / Apple Venus v.1 (1999) [The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead, Then She Appeared / Easter Theatre, I'd Like That]
They Might Be Giants - Flood (1990) [Birdhouse in your Soul, Dead, Istanbul Not Constantinople]
Tom Waits - Bone Machine (1992) [Earth Died Screaming, I Don't Want to Grow Up]
Kristin Hersh - Hips and Makers (1994) [A Loon, Teeth, The Letter, Your Ghost]
Nirvana - Nevermind (1991) [SLTS, In Bloom, oh you know...)
bonus choice:
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over The Sea (1999) [Holland 1945, The King of Carrot Flowers]

But I was such a 90's alternative music lover... I feel like a traitor for not giving special note to albums/songs from the likes of Tori Amos, Beck, Ween, Ellis Paul, Dar Williams, Faith No More, PJ Harvey, Nine Inch Nails, Primus, Tricky, Tool, etc, etc, etc,

Spastic Minnow wrote:

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over The Sea (1999) [Holland 1945, The King of Carrot Flowers]

Well-played.

TokyoGetter:

Quote:

I don't think that the story of Patlabor 2 is tangential or fails to relate to the show at all;it's set years after it, features characters who are in vastly different places in their lives,

You're basically supporting my argument. Patlabor 2's got the same problem as the Nadesico movie. The main characters are only given lip service, in favor of supporting characters who cannot hold up my interest for more than half an hour. But the former film's more polished, so it gets more praise, even though they both are basically disappointments. In fact, I kind of believe part of the reason the GITS movie did so badly in Japan was Patlabor fans were punishing Oshii for closing the latter series on such a disappointing note. Yeah, they're at different places in their lives, but they should actually have some importance to the story, and they do not.

Quote:

and conveys their emotional reactions to events in a fantastically subtle but believable way.

That's great, but that's not what I wanted to see. The series as a whole works, because there's a balance between comedy and drama. But with Patlabor 2, it's just empty arthouse shit.

Quote:

They're pawns in a horrifying chess game, but they're not screaming lunatics about it.

And thus, this undermines your argument that it's "realistic", and once again supports my argument that the story does not actually convey any sense of impact on the public at large. You see the Japanese public protesting against nuclear energy after Fukushima? That's what I imagine would be happening if they were aware of that kind of corruption across the board.

Quote:

Yeah, it's slow and maudlin, but the film devotes very large amounts of time to analyzing the different attacks, and in fact the heft of the film comes from it.

But you don't get a feel for the actual impact on individual citizens anymore than you would from the average Godzilla movie. I'm not really a fan of the second half of Birdy: Decode, for being so dark, and in retrospect, now feeling like it's "too soon", even though it happened before the disaster in Tohoku. But the way Decode explores government policies in response to such situations, and how civilians are caught in the crossfire, is a lot more realistic than Patlabor 2.

Quote:

By the time the army is in Tokyo and the people have to deal with them on a day to day basis the scope of the events are self-evident.

But they're really not, because they're only really seen from the military POV.

Quote:

GITS to me always felt like Patlabor 2 Mark Deux; despite liking it, it felt extraordinarily light on script and heavy on flash, and a lot of the lugubrious pacing and tracking shots seemed to have been executed so much more deftly in P2.

But GITS stands up on its own. It doesn't need the manga to work. Patlabor 2, OTOH, is desperately trying to make callbacks to the rest of the series.

Quote:

Eden of the East isn't even in the same league. It's shiny-happy-twee terrorism, and has none of the frightful false peace concepts at work. Great production values, though.

As least we agree there.

Last edited by ljaesch on Wed Jun 20, 2012 6:49 pm; edited 4 times in total

Wow, this was a long ANNCast! I'm actually still listening as I type, to the section about favorite songs. This piques my interest, since I'm a bit of a music nerd.

Zac, while Pretty Hate Machine (EDIT: Why did I originally put The Downward Spiral there? I know better than that!) may have been from 1989, NIN did have some releases in the 1990s, so I think NIN should count. Smile

Green Day, Garbage and KMFDM are great, too. Smile

Justin, that acoustic version of "Counting Blue Cars" is good. My husband and I have that maxi CD.

Your number five song, "Shock" by Roxette that you cite from Dance Away. "Dance Away" is a song from Roxette's 2nd album, Look Sharp! from 1989 (it was their first album in the U.S., but was actually their second; their first album, Pearls of Passion was released in 1986). My husband and I like and own a lot of Roxette's material, and we've never heard of this song. I'd like to get more info on this song.

Mike, awesome choices for both "Girlfriend" by Matthew Sweet and "Speed" by Alpha Team. My husband and I have the CD single for "Speed" (which includes the "Hardcore" version, which uses the Speed Racer dialogue in such a way that is... ummm... sexually suggestive, for lack of a better term). I also love the song and video for "Girlfriend."

Bamboo, "Sabotage," "Basket Case," and "I Want That Way" are all good choices. Smile

But, this is an anime podcast, so let's see here. Of the titles mentioned in this podcast, I've seen Neon Genesis Evangelion, Perfect Blue, Revolutionary Girl Utena, My Neighbors the Yamadas, Porco Rosso, and Macross Plus off the top of my head. Sadly, I have not seen Patlabor 2 or Giant Robo yet. For the ones I've seen, I'm not sure I can really add too much more to the discussion than what was already mentioned in the actual podcast.

The podcast ended while I was writing this. Dang, with my kids from school interrupting me for various reasons and trying to juggle laundry, it took me 3 1/2 hours to listen to this podcast. Yeesh!

EDITED TO ADD:

Unfortunately, the 1990s were the time period where I had basically walked away from anime until returning in the "aughts." While I have seen some of the anime releases from the 1990s, I'm not sure I've realy seen enough of it to be able to compile even a top three list.

And when it comes to music, that would be a tall order. Even narrowing it down to bands and artists would be an endeavor. But I will try. And I guess I'd better place a ground rule that the artists and bands had to make their debut in the 1990s, because otherwise I would have a lot of carry-overs from the 1980s (like Depeche Mode, Erasure, Debbie/Deborah Gibson, Roxette, Pet Shop Boys and Madonna, for example).

Nirvana (I was actually shocked that nobody mentioned them in their top 5)
Savage Garden
Aqua
Pearl Jam

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