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20 Years Ago: The Best Anime of 1999

Few seem to mind, though, as a full reboot was made in 2011 which covers all the ground of this 1999 series and then some.

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Few seem to mind, though, as a full reboot was made in 2011 which covers all the ground of this 1999 series and then some.

Few seem to mind? Seriously? Seeing side by side comparisons just makes it that much more obvious that the 1999 version of HxH is superior in every respect. Exactly which scenes did 2011 handle better than 99? If you actually watched comparisons you would know that 1999 had better storyboarding, art and animation style than 2011 in every important scene. Fluid animation is made possible by 1) a decent frame rate and 2) the use of smears - Norio Matsumoto's animation style is distinctive due to the relatively high FPS his heavy use of smears require. The 2011 version has low FPS and does not use smears but simple motion blurs which make the animation look less fluid. The use of motion blur instead of smears is a telling sign that the animator is an amateur who has no idea what he's doing.

I don't get why people are trying to raise doubts about which series is better. 2011 is so obviously less polished, drawn by amateurs, badly directed, that you really cannot make yourself credible with any kind of argument to the effect of making them seem even remotely close.

Speed lines are another sign you have no idea how to animate fluidity in an action scene. Compare https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBBq8R_4kcc
The 2011 version looks like shit because there's speed lines everywhere. The 1999 version by contrast did not use speed lines but instead depicted the actual rotation of the background. This shows the excellent use of camera angles and movement in the 1999 version to show the dynamics of the action. The 2011 version does not rotate the camera, it just cuts from one angle to the next. This is laziness, and it destroys dynamism in the scene. As for the fight, I preferred the 1999 one. Some cool touches, with the light from Zeno's dragon lance reflecting from Chrollo's startled eyes. Nice music but much of it was wasted on the talking.

The theater would have benefited from a bit more opulence - the macabre had always gone well with the majestic; and it's probably what Togashi was shooting for - but I guess the 1999 anime had blown their budget by that point. Would definitely have been better dark though. I thought it was kind of strange fully lit in 2011. In the music department 2011 fails again, disjointedly flitting from one piece to the other. Not to mention the heavy censorship, butchered content and rushed pacing directed by some literally who leading a group of pedophile fujoshi animators so busy shipping two young boys together (Gon and Killua), they had to "animate" the whole thing using glorified stills between speed lines in place of actual animation

Again, if you don't know anything about animation, don't make silly comments about how 2011 handles some scenes better. It doesn't. Anyone saying that the 2011 version is even remotely close to the 1999 series immediately reveals that he or she doesn't know anything about animation.

Seeing side by side comparisons just makes it that much more obvious that the 1999 version of HxH is superior in every respect. Exactly which scenes did 2011 handle better than 99? If you actually watched comparisons you would know that 1999 had better storyboarding, art and animation style than 2011 in every important scene. Fluid animation is made possible by 1) a decent frame rate and 2) the use of smears - Norio Matsumoto's animation style is distinctive due to the relatively high FPS his heavy use of smears require. The 2011 version has low FPS and does not use smears but simple motion blurs which make the animation look less fluid. The use of motion blur instead of smears is a telling sign that the animator is an amateur who has no idea what he's doing.

I don't get why people are trying to raise doubts about which series is better. 2011 is so obviously less polished, drawn by amateurs, badly directed, that you really cannot make yourself credible with any kind of argument to the effect of making them seem even remotely close.

Speed lines are another sign you have no idea how to animate fluidity in an action scene. Compare https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBBq8R_4kcc
The 2011 version looks like shit because there's speed lines everywhere. The 1999 version by contrast did not use speed lines but instead depicted the actual rotation of the background. This shows the excellent use of camera angles and movement in the 1999 version to show the dynamics of the action. The 2011 version does not rotate the camera, it just cuts from one angle to the next. This is laziness, and it destroys dynamism in the scene. As for the fight, I preferred the 1999 one. Some cool touches, with the light from Zeno's dragon lance reflecting from Chrollo's startled eyes. Nice music but much of it was wasted on the talking.

The theater would have benefited from a bit more opulence - the macabre had always gone well with the majestic; and it's probably what Togashi was shooting for - but I guess the 1999 anime had blown their budget by that point. Would definitely have been better dark though. I thought it was kind of strange fully lit in 2011. In the music department 2011 fails again, disjointedly flitting from one piece to the other. Not to mention the heavy censorship, butchered content and rushed pacing directed by some literally who leading a group of pedophile fujoshi animators so busy shipping two young boys together (Gon and Killua), they had to "animate" the whole thing using glorified stills between speed lines in place of actual animation.

Again, if you don't know anything about animation, don't make silly comments about how 2011 handles some scenes better. It doesn't. Anyone saying that the 2011 version is even remotely close to the 1999 series immediately reveals that he or she doesn't know anything about animation.

I'm surprised he didn't mention Digimon Adventure (original). 20 years?! Time surely flies.
I barely remember watching Digimon when I was little but I did watch it.

How have we gone this long without mentioning the true best anime of 1999: Reign: the Conqueror? In all its bizarre terribleness I can't help but love it.

Really upset that Ojamajo Doremi was, for all intents and purposes completely skipped over...

...Digimon Adventure missing is a huge "What?"...

...really, there's a lot of notable titles that are missing on this list that I can't help but wonder what determined the picking of everything.

I'm very surprised that Daryl neglected to mention my personal favorite anime that started in the Fall of 1999. Now And Then Here And There. Fantastic show. One of Akitaro Daichi's best works...even more so because it plays very much against what you would expect from an Akitaro Daichi show. I admit that I have not revisited it in a very long time, but I am sure it still holds up in 2019. Parts of that show are still seared into my memory 20 years later.

Highly recommended.

"...here's an unordered sampling of some titles from 1999 which I think have either had a lasting impact or are worth your time to watch now, in 2019. In the interest of brevity, I'm only counting a title as 'from 1999' if it started in 1999" --the beginning of this article. A fair amount of the titles people are mentioning in the comments as so-called glaring omissions DID NOT START IN 1999.

Several others--the vast, VAST, majority of what people are naming--are out of print and cannot easily be seen. I try to limit the amount of out of print titles I name to about 3 or 4 tops because experience has shown that people HATE when you talk about how great it was when say, Master Keaton defused a bomb using a chocolate bar, but then point out that there's no way for them to see the thing.

Lastly, and this is far less common, a title from 1999 someone deems noteworthy can be omitted because IT'S NOT GOOD. Alexander Senki aka Reign: The Conqueror is NOT GOOD. Tenchi Forever is NOT GOOD. These are things which should be watched by nobody and remain forgotten to time, the way they are now. Here, I'll summarize Tenchi Forever using the exact same four words I used when I saw it 20 years ago: "Tenchi meets another girl."

"Who remembers the Y2K problem?"