Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Neonivek]

Pollyanna was more interesting for me because she is MADE of Shonen protagonist. I wanted to see what the country that loves its hopelessly gleeful characters did with this character.

and instead I got a very faithful and very well done anime >_<

[Reelya]

They don't usually butcher literature when it gets adapted. For example, I'm pretty sure the Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn adaptations don't have them battling any robot vampires.

[Culise]

Nor did the Count of Monte Cristo have giant robots duking it out while the General went for broke and launched a full coup against the government.  Or Romeo and Juliet where the Montagues were oppressive and upstart dictators on a floating island and the Capulets an extirpated noble line in the vein of the classic "true king fallen."  Or A Little Princess where they fly space mecha against a hostile empire, and Sara must fight a literally fratricidal war against her own brother, the traitor and defector. 

Sorry, sorry, I know what you mean, the time frame on all of these was very different (2000s) from the golden age of those works listed (early 1980s), and all of these examples were more "reimaginings" than "adaptions."  I just couldn't resist.

^{EDIT: Corrected the Little Princess example.  It's been almost a decade since I watched it, so I was a bit fuzzy on the details.  Especially the spoiler-laden ones.}

[Orange Wizard]

I really want to see an anime adaptation of the Count of Monte Cristo with humongous mechas now.

[Reelya]

Well, Gankutsuo (2004) is a science fiction reimagining of the Count of Monte Christo.

Looking through the World Masterpiece Theater animes, I saw that they adapted Little Women the year after they did Pollyanna. I'm pretty sure that's a sci-fi lesbian magical girl version of Little Women.

Seriously though, they adapted Les Misérables in 2007. That's pretty cool.

[Orange Wizard]

I get the feeling you're actually just an infinite compendium of knowledge.

[Arcvasti]

Seriously though, they adapted Les Misérables in 2007. That's pretty cool.

Hah, I feel proud for knowing that. Need to watch that once I'm done with LOTGH[Only ~90 episodes left~!] I swear I've heard something about there being Harry Potter anime somewhere too.


So, based on some recommendations from this thread, I've been watching Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

Spoiler: Long rant (click to show/hide)

I'm not sure how I feel about it. The animation quality is hard to ignore and every time some highly-placed military person makes an ungodly stupid mistake because they're not the protagonist part of me dies, but its neat. The space war of MURRICABUTUPTO11 vs GERMANYBUTWITHCOOLERPLACENAMES is nice in that neither side is really EVIL. The Alliance seems slightly better, but they've got their fair share of problems too. And things can get reasonably intense at times, too. Caesar-style mass stabbings and such do happen dramatically. But, despite that, it feels like its better to have described to you rather then watching. Yes, it does have politics and space battles and murder, but it feels like they're executed stiltedly. Partly from the animation and partly because of how much better/lucky the protagonists are then everyone else. Like, the first episode. One protagonist wins a hopeless space battle because he sees something no one else does, even though no one believes he's right. His counterpart protagonist on the other side sees how to counter that tactic but no one believes he's right, even when the correct course of action seems obvious. And that's been basically how the next 5-10 episodes go too. Protagonist sees things because they're brilliant, no one else does because they're dumb, protagonist wins unless against another protagonist, then its a toss-up. That said, the latest episodes I've been watching seem to be getting better, probably since the protagonists are going to be pitted against each other instead of against random incompetents in inexplicably high positions. Plus we're getting more development of minor characters to replace people who's only purpose is to be dumb for one episode so the protagonists look good.

TL;DR, writing & animation are vaguely disappointing, but I'm still hopeful. I'm barely even 10% of the way through, things'll probably get better.

[Culise]

I really want to see an anime adaptation of the Count of Monte Cristo with humongous mechas now.

First one is, as Reelya noted, Gankutsuou.  Second one is Romeo x Juliet.  Third one is Soukou no Strain, alternately Str.A.In: Strategic Armored Infantry.  Two of these three are Gonzo; they also did Samurai 7, which is the Seven Samurai, but I decided that Frances Hodgson Burnett was about as recent as I wanted to go for the joke.  Plus, I never actually did get around to watching that one. ^_^

[Reelya]

Well if we're getting into things that are influenced by other things, then clearly Hellsing = Bram Stoker and Strike Witches is the Battle of Britain. Both these were also Gonzo. (the first Hellsing anime)

[Neonivek]

Having watched their Pollyanna anime...

Nope World Masterpiece Theater is quite true to the source material all things considered. So you won't get any oddities like Little Women suddenly brandishing Katanas to take down Alien Demon Nobunaga.

As awesome as those animes SOMETIMES are.

[Hawkfrost]

Gankutsuou is interesting in how it decides to adapt the source material.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The ending especially is quite different, because in the book the final message is that the Count can redeem himself while in the show it is shown that he cannot, that he is too far gone and nothing can save him now; Usually the TV adaption of a book is the one that goes for the happy ending.

Plus, perma-rave future-France is a cool take on the future, combining the decadence of Europe during the 19th century with the possibilities of sci-fi technology and how rich people would use it for frivolous bullshit.

The mecha fights were dumb, though.

[JoshuaFH]

The style of the show is FABULOUS tho, with alot of clothing having a surreal design to them, and it actually was close enough to the book that I was able to pass a literature test on it in Highschool from just watching the show.

[Neonivek]

The style of the show is FABULOUS tho, with alot of clothing having a surreal design to them, and it actually was close enough to the book that I was able to pass a literature test on it in Highschool from just watching the show.

Yeah when you spoke about mecha the teacher just thought you were being creative.

[miauw62]

Gankutsuou is interesting in how it decides to adapt the source material.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The ending especially is quite different, because in the book the final message is that the Count can redeem himself while in the show it is shown that he cannot, that he is too far gone and nothing can save him now; Usually the TV adaption of a book is the one that goes for the happy ending.

Plus, perma-rave future-France is a cool take on the future, combining the decadence of Europe during the 19th century with the possibilities of sci-fi technology and how rich people would use it for frivolous bullshit.

The mecha fights were dumb, though.

You might enjoy the book Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds, which takes place in a future city some time after a cataclysmic event destroyed all nanotech. Still a lot of rich people BS though.

[Mattk50]

Seriously though, they adapted Les Misérables in 2007. That's pretty cool.

Hah, I feel proud for knowing that. Need to watch that once I'm done with LOTGH[Only ~90 episodes left~!] I swear I've heard something about there being Harry Potter anime somewhere too.


So, based on some recommendations from this thread, I've been watching Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

Spoiler: Long rant (click to show/hide)

I'm not sure how I feel about it. The animation quality is hard to ignore and every time some highly-placed military person makes an ungodly stupid mistake because they're not the protagonist part of me dies, but its neat. The space war of MURRICABUTUPTO11 vs GERMANYBUTWITHCOOLERPLACENAMES is nice in that neither side is really EVIL. The Alliance seems slightly better, but they've got their fair share of problems too. And things can get reasonably intense at times, too. Caesar-style mass stabbings and such do happen dramatically. But, despite that, it feels like its better to have described to you rather then watching. Yes, it does have politics and space battles and murder, but it feels like they're executed stiltedly. Partly from the animation and partly because of how much better/lucky the protagonists are then everyone else. Like, the first episode. One protagonist wins a hopeless space battle because he sees something no one else does, even though no one believes he's right. His counterpart protagonist on the other side sees how to counter that tactic but no one believes he's right, even when the correct course of action seems obvious. And that's been basically how the next 5-10 episodes go too. Protagonist sees things because they're brilliant, no one else does because they're dumb, protagonist wins unless against another protagonist, then its a toss-up. That said, the latest episodes I've been watching seem to be getting better, probably since the protagonists are going to be pitted against each other instead of against random incompetents in inexplicably high positions. Plus we're getting more development of minor characters to replace people who's only purpose is to be dumb for one episode so the protagonists look good.

TL;DR, writing & animation are vaguely disappointing, but I'm still hopeful. I'm barely even 10% of the way through, things'll probably get better.

Spoiler: the sides (click to show/hide)

The way i interpreted the alliance and empire was that the empire was the example of dictatorship at it's best and the alliance was democracy at it's worst.