Postby the_wolfs_howl » Thu Jan 10, 2013 2:02 pm
Put Clannad on hold for a little while, but watched plenty of anime over Christmas break! ^_^
Wolf's Rain - I shared this with my sisters, since they wanted an anime with wolves in it. It was great to go through this story again; it's one of my favorites. And of course I ended up bawling over Tsume, as always.
The Borrowers Arrietty (or whatever the English title is supposed to be) - Okay, so my mom neglected to check the back of the case, and this only had Japanese audio. So we thought, "Okay, let's just watch with English subtitles. No problem." But those subtitles were the worst I've ever seen, even worse than the crappy fansub of Kodocha I watched way way back. It barely subbed half the lines! DX So we watched it anyway, and thankfully there's not a whole lot of talking in it, and we had to rely on the few tidbits the subtitles gave us, and the random Japanese words and phrases I've picked up in my years of watching anime. We got the basic gist of it, but I'd still like to watch it with full understanding sometime. Anyway, gorgeous animation, as is to be expected. It was really interesting to see things from that perspective, especially with the attention to detail you always find in Ghibli movies.
Trigun - Also watched this with my sisters, and I'm happy to say they loved it. I always forget how crazy Vash is, and marvel over the kind of things he manages to get away with just because of who he is.
Record of Lodoss War - This really scratched the high fantasy itch my brother and I were feeling, so this was just the thing to watch. Cheesy, and very obviously derivative of D&D, but that made it fun to watch. We basically had our own Lodoss Abridged Series going on while we were watching, yet we still enjoyed it fully.
Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight - We managed until episode 10 of this before giving up. Everything about the dragon-slaying was all good fun, but once it became clear they were bringing in a new hero, we just gave up on it. I disliked Spark from the moment he came on screen, so we just cut our losses and dropped this show. It was fun while it lasted, though. I especially liked laughing at all the stupid names. I mean, come on. Who names the rising hero Parn, or the evil sorcerer bad guy who strikes fear in all his victims...Wagnard? o.0
One Stormy Night - Another movie I watched with my sisters because they wanted something with wolves. It's a truly heartwarming story about a wolf and a goat who become friends, and run up against every tradition and instinct to remain faithful to that friendship. The animation was a little weird, but cute, and the music was beautiful. Definitely one I'd like to show to my kids one day.
Trigun: Badlands Rumble - Finally got around to seeing this! This movie is everything I was expecting - just another fun adventure in Vash's travels, with craziness and fun action. The animation was amazing, especially because I got to see the blu-ray version. It's as though you watch the entire anime series through a foggy window, but when you watch Badlands Rumble you open the window and see what it's really like. Amazing. It was also interesting to hear how the seiyuu's voices had changed in the past ten or so years, even though they sounded like the same characters. I felt like Masaya Onosaka didn't have quite the same delightful exaggeration in his voice, but oh well.
Once it (finally 
) does, though, I'd rate it the same as 01 and 02 (and in fact its storyline gets even more serious towards the end than theirs do). So, to sum it up, while I did not enjoy *all* of this series as much as I enjoyed all of the first two, I think it does get as good as them eventually, and was certainly worth the watch. 
First: holy crap, I've never heard/seen such fast narration with subs before-- I'm actually a speed-reader, and that still took me a couple of minutes to get used to, LOL 
; however, personally, it was well worth the watch. 
