Surprise Anime Titles

I have nearly completed watching the 'Vandread' series and I have to say that this title has been a title that has surprised me a great deal. I normally avoid mecha titles, but this one was not only funny, but has interesting characters and a good story. It was good enough to me that I immediately have gone out and begun purchasing it.

So to the group, what anime title has surprised you most, good or bad?

] ] So to the group, what anime title has surprised you most, good or bad?

Good. Juuni Kokki. I had heard that it was good from a few comments on the group but I was blown away by the first few episodes I dl'd. Bad. Record of Lodoss War. Finished first episode, wasn't even slightly interested in seeing more. I suppose it might have aged badly.

'I am only correcting God's mistakes' - Celestine

Hana Yori Dango - Heard many good things about it but never saw it. Usually I'll preview the show before I buy anything on DVD, but I took a chance and I dont regret it at all.

Excel Saga - started out good but then each disc became less and less funny. I eventually stopped buying after the 3rd disc.

It worked well enough for me despite having never heard of the novels (this was back when I'd barely heard of anime, much less of other things Japanese), due in no small part to my more-peripheral-than-I'd-like interest in pen-and-paper RPGs; on several occasions through the series, and in that first episode in particular, I could almost *hear* the dice rolling as the game galumphs along.

If you neither have read the novels nor have a D&D-style RPing interest, then the episode may indeed come off as less than interesting. (Or perhaps even if you have; I may be an atypical example.)

o 'Tiny Snow Fairy Sugar'. From some screen shots I had seen, it looked like senseless, pointless hyperactive cuteness, but instead it turns out to be a story about a 13 (?) year old girl growing beyond a tragedy that had occurred several years previously. Still quite cute mind you, but not senseles and with real character depth.

o 'Key the Metal Idol'. It sounded like a combination of crappy pop music with ludicrous plotting. Instead, it has a very dark and interesting storyline, with rather good music.

For more, see here -
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- dbm

If you think the first arc of 12 kindgoms is good, wait till you see the third arc. That's episode23-39 I think.

I am a complete 12K fanboy now if you can't tell. You can get some DVD goodie from my host.

] If you think the first arc of 12 kindgoms is good, wait till you see ] the third arc. That's episode23-39 I think.

Oh, I've seen the 44 that have been fansubbed. They all don't have the furious pace of the first 6 eps. but it's still one of the best anime ever made. I enjoy the slow episodes. Even the CLIP SHOWS are decent!! Plus, I love it when something is set up in episode 5 and pays off in episode 30 plus.

'I am only correcting God's mistakes' - Celestine

It's actually a fairly standard narrative device, putting some action right up front to get people interested rather than starting with the slow setup. Obviously it backfired as applied to you in this instance, but it's generally effective if properly executed.

It's been so long since I've seen the series that I decline to address the subject of Deedlit's personality. <grin> She didn't much strike me that way, but that's probably a side effect of a characteristic of my own personality; I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, sometimes far past the limits of sanity.

The fact that it was anime helped too. Some friends of the family had been in the habit of bringing over anime which they owned subtitled, and had turned the rest of the family on to (among other things) Ranma; I don't remember whether I got around to watching Ranma (alone - I have issues about things I perceive as embarrassing, but the effects are mitigated if there's no one else watching with me) before or after they rented Lodoss War and brought it over, but I was familiar with the notion that there was such a thing as anime and it was different from 'normal' animation by that point. And although I hadn't yet developed even my present minor fixation on the language, the fact that it was in Japanese probably also didn't hurt too much. <grin>

...My, that was a ramble, wasn't it? I think I was looking for a way to say 'yes, but no', or maybe 'no, but yes', but I don't think I did a particularly good job of it.

I've only seen the first DVD of this series. It always seems to be rented on Greencine, but it is in my queue waiting.

Neon Genesis Evangelion -> blown away Full Metal Panic (1 + fumoffu) -> especially fumoffu was much much funnier than i expected...

Bad: Kenshin after episode 66.... what a surprising dissapointment

That was the problem. It was as if there were two staffs, one for the humor and one for the serious. Had they worked on blending the two halves better, this would have really worked.

You liked the comedy of FMP, right? 'Fumoffu' is all comedy like that and may be one of the funniest anime titles out there. Some of the parodies ('Full Metal Jacket', 'Hamburger Hill' were just so funny to me. And seeing Chidori become more Sosuke-like was fun too. While I would get FMP if I can score a legit copy for cheap (say a used copy), I'd be tempted to pay full price for FMP~Fumoffu~.