One hour, three series, no waiting! (A)

[thistlechaser]

My Netflix order came through today, so I had Record of the Lodoss War and Record of Lodoss War - Chronicles of the Heroic Knight in hand, and Lupin III - The Castle of Cagliostro finished downloading overnight, so I had that to check out as well.

Swing... miss!
Swing... miss!
Swing... miss!

Record of the Lodoss War: 1991 seems like just a year or two ago, not nearly fifteen. The age of this series explains why the art and style were so bad that I nearly gagged on my popcorn. Add to that utterly cliched characters (done that way on purpose, I suspect) and a boring storyline, and you get this unwatchable series. Watched an ep and a half before I couldn't take another moment of it. Sealed the disks back up, will mail them back tomorrow. (Note: Oddly, I saw part of this a few years ago, back well before I got into anime. I had thought it interesting at the time, so I guess my taste has evolved.)

Record of Lodoss War - Chronicles of the Heroic Knight: Came out in 1998, and while the style is still old, at least it was watchable. Not great, not good, but I didn't consider clawing my eyes out as an escape from having to view it. Same cliched characters, crappy dialogue, ho-hum voices. No idea about the plot; I turned it off about 18 minutes into the first ep. Sending it back tomorrow.

Lupin III - The Castle of Cagliostro: Punch (snowcalico)has been after me to watch this nearly as long as I've been watching anime, and sorry to her, but I wish I still hadn't watched it. Hated the art style, hated the voices (until I finally made the Japanese soundtrack work, then I only disliked them a lot), didn't like the characters one little bit, and the utter silliness it made me want to fly to Japan and kick the people who came up with this idea. (Does it surprise you at all that our tastes are so different? Probably not, huh?)

So... yeah. All I can say is that I'm really happy to be into anime now, when the levels of animation/style are so high and there are lots of good series to watch.

Comments

[fealu-bryne.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Everybody I know who's seen Record of Lodoss War really liked it. Hm...

Didn't really look my thing anyways. With the pointy-eared people and the romancy stuff and whatnot. So.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

the pointy-eared people

*laughs* Understatement! If they flapped their ears, I'm sure they could fly at the speed of light.

It's possible I didn't give it enough of a chance, but the animation was just too poor for me to stick with it.

[daltontrix.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, the ones I tend to like best are the more dated ones. ;)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, the ones I tend to like best are the more dated ones. ;)

Which explains that whole Chia thing, right? ;)

[daltontrix.livejournal.com]

Perhaps. ;)

On the anime topic, though... there's only one real thing you can do if you want to watch the 'older' stuff (Pre-mid 90s or whenever the computer started to become the big medium for creation of it). You have to be able to watch it with a different viewpoint.

If you're going to watch it with the intention of comparing it to the more modern stuff, it's going to look really bad due to the obvious technique/technological changes. If you can break away from that and look at it from the perspective that it was the standard (or possibly the top, if it's a good series) of it's time, it looks less bad. ;)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah... It's hard not to compare it to the current stuff though. Eye candy-ness isn't the most important factor, but it is probably third on my list (characterization and plot above it). For me, it's a little hard to look past it. :}

[morinotokei.livejournal.com]

Lodoss War has been recc'ed to me so many times, but for one reason or another I'd never gotten to it. I should really check it out sometime, you know, after I'm done with the 20 or so titles I'm currently following. >.>;

You could always just try out the new titles that are coming out on bt, and see if anything sticks.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

If you're really, really, really into D&D, you might/probably would like it. It's very... um, RPG-ish. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing, it's just not what I'm looking for at the moment. (The animation IS highly ugly though, and that is a bad thing IMO.)

You could always just try out the new titles that are coming out on bt, and see if anything sticks.

That's just what I'm doing (downloading two titles now). It's sort of funny, as that's how I started all this back when I didn't know good from bad. Heh. :)

[tricianna.livejournal.com]

Thing with Lodoss War, the whole story was deliberately a cliche. (a la Tolkien, with those classes, etc). I didnt like it too much when I watched it myself, but my brother, who's a big fantasy geek, loves it and can watch it over and over.

I have Netflix too, and actually, their selection has vastly improved since I first joined. Why not try out recent stuff out on DVD like Haibane Renmei? It seems almost silly for me to keep renting anime through Netflix since I buy series that I'm die-hard about, but it's still a good way about the anime that I'm not sure of.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Thing with Lodoss War, the whole story was deliberately a cliche. (a la Tolkien, with those classes, etc). I

That's what I sort of figured, yeah. It felt really D&D-ish (which isn't a bad thing! I guess it's just not the thing for me right now).

Haibane Renmei

Huh, I didn't spot that, I'll look through their anime section again. Thanks!

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

Lodoss war is an animated D&D campaign, with all that entails. As such, it's lots of fun if you're into that sort of thing. Particularly if you've got some geeky friends who will join you in attaching game mechanics to onscreen events. "Oooh, he failed his DEX check!"

I agree on Haibane Renmei, though. I think I've rec'ed this one to you before, in fact.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yes and yes, I could see the total D&D-ness of it.

I agree on Haibane Renmei, though. I think I've rec'ed this one to you before, in fact.

I'm grabbing a copy of it this very moment!

[tersa.livejournal.com]

You cannot sway my opinion of Record of the Lodoss War. I am a D&D geek at heart, and TSR actually sued the makers of this anime after it came out. :)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

*laughs* No, no, I've learned that trying to change anyone's opinion on these things is about as likely to succeed as arguing to switch their opinions on gay marriage and abortion. To each their own! :)

I am a D&D geek at heart, and TSR actually sued the makers of this anime after it came out. :)

That makes sense, and is probably why I liked it more years ago -- back when I was more of a gamer than I am now.

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

it made me want to fly to Japan and kick the people who came up with this idea.
You'd be kicking Hayao Miyazaki, seeing as he directed the film and wrote the screenplay. :P Although, I suppose you could also go to France and kick the author of the original Lupin books this story was based off of (Maurice LeBlanc), but he's been dead for a good long time. You'd have to do some digging!

(Does it surprise you at all that our tastes are so different? Probably not, huh?)

Not really, no. Different strokes for different folks I guess. I still stand by that it's a good movie, and will continue to recommend it to people.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

*laughs* People would probably be mad if I kicked him, huh? And ew! I'm not kicking a dead person! He'd probably be all mushy and full of bugs...

I still stand by that it's a good movie, and will continue to recommend it to people.

Sounds like a plan. :)

[evilgrayson.livejournal.com]

Miyazaki? Well, seeing as he won an Oscar last year for Spirited Away, I think people might get upset if you kicked him. :)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Find Miyazaki and kick him

Okay, that's off my list then.