Report Sheklon's Profile

Being entertained but confused about FLCL after watching it for the first time sounds about right... The pacing is insane and many things are just not verbalized at all. The whole thing about Naota's brother and Mamimi, and the letter from the US? Yeah, first time you're probably not looking for it, and if you blink at the wrong moment you'll miss it anyway. After a few rewatches it seems a lot less convoluted I think. The good thing is that it is very pleasant to rewatch. Quite short, incredible animation, and you can just treat it like the best music video ot there. I also had to accept that some parts were impossible to translate... Tho watching a couple different subs does help a bit with that.
I find all three main characters quite relatable tbh. Naota's apathy and inability to commit, Mamimi's awkwardness and dependency, and Ninamori's cynicism towards adults are all things I still struggle with, in my thirties. Tho Haruko is probably just a metaphor for puberty, and impossible to relate to.

By comparison, the "sequels" are... huh... a lot less FLCL-esque. They're not horrible anime, but if you're expecting more insane pacing, awesome animation, and nonsensical lines, you won't really find it here. Definitely watchable, but slapping the FLCL name on them was a bold move. I think anything Imaishi does (Kill la Kill especially) is closer to FLCL than those sequels are.

I definitely agree on NGE's presentation. Comparing it to other monster of the week shows of the era is almost shocking. IMO anime directors are often picked for their abilities to coordinate a team, respect deadlines, and in general make things happen; rather than for their vision. Anno is the opposite, he's known for abandonning a couple of projects and changing plans midway which leads to some rough deadlines, but he's just a great director in the traditionnal sense. Many NGE shots are iconic. The one that always comes to mind is Shinji entering Misato's flat for the first time, and the shot of his feet before crossing the doorstep. A weird, kinda counter-intuitive, but ultimately very coherent shot top show how reluctant he is to trust others.

There are many aspects of NGE and it's up to you to focus on what interests you. I'm not too much of a psychology buff, so that part of the show doesn't concern me too much besides the fact that characters are great. I think my favorite part of it was the Asuka/Rei opposition, with one being a free being that reduces herself to a specific purpose, while the other is a clone that discovers free will beyond her intended purpose. Something similar can be found in Ergo Proxy, with Pino and the other autoreivs. It's not a big surprise if both characters became the template for their archetypes, even if it's rarely done as well as NGE does it.

Both shows are very light on hand-holding, which is IMO one of their strongest point in a genre that usually drowns the viewer in exposition speech, numerous flashbacks, and sidekicks flatly stating what everyone can already see. This generally makes them more interesting to rewatch than many other shows.

So, how did you like Area 88? I wanna rewatch it these days, at least for the cool animated planes and the soundtrack. The show's a great movie in the line of post-vietnam antiwar movies IMO, with great characters. I can almost overlook its... dated treatment of some characters (the greedy merchant is a caricatural, long-nosed jew, and the african mercenaries seem to be bad because they're black lmao).

Hope you enjoy them! I saw Iria when I was still lil' Deathko UwU

Oof, having a garbage sleeping schedule sucks. I still struggle with it. Some of us are just night owls, and it's not easy to make it work with our 9 to 5 lifestyle. Getting better these days?

Concert was AWESOME! I was feeling 70% ready... Pessimistic me :p. I think that's the first time I play live without being stoned, and it was a great change ! We played 4 songs - Get down on it, Master Blaster, Everything I own and Billie Jean. The goal is to have a 90 mins set list of funk/reggae/old-school hip-hop/Disco/RnB etc, play it well, and get payed well for it. I don't expect to make a living out of it, but I have another cover band (rock/punk) in the oven, and plan to get some students if these go well. Sure beats working my ass off in a farm for minimum wage >:3

I see you're going through FLCL and NGE! Enjoying what you're seeing?

Try to look for Nadezhda Babkina or Nadezhda Kadochnikova on YouTube. They essentially sang Russian folk songs in pop format.



She and her ensemble for some reason are dressed in Ukrainian national clothes in this video, but okay.

Quite a long time ago, but I remember this book in the general plan. The book has its own certain meme reputation in pop culture, but I think that this is not so much a story about crime as a story about compliance with moral laws in general. That is, the topic of laws and their observance/violation is used here as a moral metaphor for human social life. People often complain that Dostoevsky was too fond of philosophy, but in my opinion he always revealed this through the psychology of the characters. Even if you can disagree with him in a particular issue.

No problem. If you like this, I could also advise Ukrainian folk songs that have a similar concept, but at the same time their unique charm and style.

https://myanimelist.net/anime/1034/Ouritsu_Uchuugun__Honneamise_no_Tsubasa
Awesome sci-fi drama. There's nothing bad to say about it, but don't expect it to brighten your day. it's not a drama comedy, it's not action drama, it's drama drama T_T


https://myanimelist.net/anime/432/Iria__Zeiram_The_Animation
Everything you expect from a sci-fi 90s OVA. Great character design, decent animation and plot. It's leaning towards the great B movie category more than towards the masterpiece category, but that's also why we love those older OVAs. For tomboys enthusiasts ;).


https://myanimelist.net/anime/617/Juubee_Ninpuuchou
https://myanimelist.net/anime/1352/Cyber_City_Oedo_808
Anything made by Kawajiri is good in my book, but those two are the highlights of his gritty B movies/OVAs. Awesome art style, great animation, interesting se of lights and fancy effects. Visually, I feel there's a similarity with John Carpenter. Lots of night scenes, and scenes bathed in blue/red light. It's dumb but oh so entertaining.


https://myanimelist.net/anime/1384/Kyuuketsuhime_Miyu
That's a personal fav. Really moody and contemplative, somewhat slow paced, kinda mysterious, very japanese. Imagine Mushishi (or even closer, Mononoke), but everything is bathed in fog and moon light, and the main character is a morally grey vampire shrine maiden teen who delivers people from their curse (and life).


https://myanimelist.net/anime/569/Musekinin_Kanchou_Tylor
Very dumb and very funny. Basically, it's Golden Boy in space (and less naughty). It's also surprisingly good looking, and has a very catchy OP.


I didn't find those in our shared list. There's always more, so poke me if you want another batch of suggestions (or to tell me these sucked T_T)
Sorry I answered so late, I have my first "concert" since a decade coming in a week, spent my weekend practicing. And you, what are you doing these days?

Neither Tolstoy nor Dostoevsky were monsters. At least as I understand what you mean by this. For example, you could rudely describe Tolstoy as an Orthodox Gandhi, although his views on some questions were still quite strange by modern standards. The situation with Dostoevsky is much more complicated, but if you do not have an allergy to depressive religiosity and moralism, then I doubt that you will have any special problems with this.

I could advise you Anna Karennina if you like thoughts about how social norms and restrictions prevent people from living in honesty with themselves and destroy them mentally. Classics of Victorian existential prose Or war and peace, if you are interested in the deconstruction of the romanticization of war. If we talk about Dostoevsky, then I would advise a crime and punishment with reflection on whether a person can put himself above others, Idiot about how to keep the mind if everyone around "is crazy" and demons/brothers Karamazov if you love philosophical reasoning about idealism and nihilism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Russian_folk_songs I would advise Russian folk songs, if you want .. Many of them are quite slow and simple, as they were mainly sang in the evenings and during feasts or some sad moments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalinka_(1860_song) Although the most famous is quite fast and is sung with gradual acceleration after each repetition.

I saw! I'm super psyched to see it isn't dead! Fingers crossed it comes to theaters near us.

Don't worry ;). IRL > MAL.

Sadly, with the death of gogoanime, lots of oldies are hard to find nowadays... I'll come back to you with more suggestions during the week-end

Well I finally finished that terrible ZLS: 1st Zombie manga. And... yeah. Terrible is all I have to say about that.

Hello! Depends on the topics you are interested in. For example, I could recommend Dostoevsky if you like edgy Victorian settings and psychological discussions about human morality, religion and social life. Although I must warn you that he is, to put it mildly, a very conservative author with all that that implies.

You'll first need to tell me what you're in the mood for (action? drama? robots?), but in the meantime, 11-nin iru! is a classic, and apparently the only anime adaptation of the legendary Moto Hagio's work. For their last exam, 10 students need to stay for nearly two months in a stranded spaceship. But when they get there, they realize they're eleven. I remember it being very good and reminiscent of sci-fi classics.

Haha. I sure hope so, but just 2 days in it's already a rollercoaster. But I'll be fine, being busy means business is booming :)
I hope you have a less tiresome year too. All the best and Happy new year!

Happy New Year to you, too!

Same thing to you, Sheklon-kun!
That's some cool anime you just put in your PTW ;)

No problem. Thank you too. New Year's is a family holiday here, so I mostly spent it with my family and relaxing.