Suggestions?

Slide · **Posted:** Tue Dec 30, 2003 6:49 am

Say hi to the newb!

I haven't paid much attention to anime (aside from wallpapers and misc. references) for several years, so I'm looking for advice.

I intend to pick up some DVDs, and have no idea what to get! A friend of mine has suggested Onegai Teacher or Love Hina, of which I'm vaguely familiar with both, but I dunno. I grew up with Robotech (and subsequently, the original Macross and Mospeada anime), Vampire Hunter D, Ghost in the Shell, and a few others I don't recall the names of, which were all great...the whole Megatokyo thing is rather amusing, so maybe something more in that vein...

Help!

I'm hoping the collective experience of folks here might be able to give me some direction, or at least a good starting point.

Thanks in advance!!

0ctane · **Posted:** Tue Dec 30, 2003 7:54 am

Slide wrote:

I grew up with Robotech (and subsequently, the original Macross and Mospeada anime), Vampire Hunter D, Ghost in the Shell, and a few others I don't recall the names of, which were all great..

Since you have seen Robotech (I too grew up with it), I recommend Macross Plus. I do not recommend Macross II. You may want to check out the thread :http://www.nekochan.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1391&highlight= where people are listing their favorites right now. Bubblegum Crisis is pretty good if you like mecha stuff, although I am partial to the original series as opposed to the remake.

Hakimoto · **Posted:** Tue Dec 30, 2003 11:08 am

Macross II not good? Aaaaaargh! ;-)

No, seriously, I think it's quite brillant as a standalone thing. I never liked anything that came after. It lacks the epicness of watching the complete Macross II in a row.

Some suggestions for really good anime:

Noir - a story about a professional assassin woman and a girl she comes across who has lost her memory and is quite a killer herself... 23 episodes I think...

RahXephon - the only time I ever saw Neon Genesis Evangelion I thought it sucked, so here's an alternative to that. Nice series about strange metadimensional god machines who displace Tokyo in place and time around orbit Jupiter...

Gunnm - classic film about a cyborg girl and her adventures in a world where the rich dump their waste down onto earth...

VanDread - hilarious comedy scifi with lots of space opera elements about a future where men and women are deadly enemies but slowly get to know each other...

Hope it helps.

Slide · **Posted:** Tue Dec 30, 2003 11:42 am

RahXephon sounds like it could be amusing. I'm also looking at Full Metal Panic, just for kicks...

Soooo much out there! And since I'm pretty much buying without knowing wholly what I'm getting into at this point...the input is much appreciated!

Gonna keep diggin'..

0ctane · **Posted:** Tue Dec 30, 2003 12:29 pm

Hakimoto wrote:

the only time I ever saw Neon Genesis Evangelion I thought it sucked,

NGE sucked?!! Well, I admit the ending sucked. Everything was going great...cool organic mecha, shapely women, plots within plots. Then along comes a bunch of pseudo-religous end-of-the-world nonsense. I was very disappointed. Maybe I need to check out RahXephon also.
BTW, check your local video stores for anime rentals. I was once in a Baltimore suburb Blockbuster that had an impressive collection. Mostly just the first few episodes of various series, but it is cheaper than buying them.

nekonoko · **Posted:** Tue Jan 06, 2004 5:27 am

Just a note that you can always visit http://www.animesuki.com/ and download some of the fansub torrents archived there. Animesuki won't help you in choosing which DVDs to purchase since everything available for download is unlicensed (usually still airing in Japan). It does work nicely as a method for previewing titles that will be available on DVD in the next year or so and may also give clues as to which genre(s) of anime you might find interesting.

For domestic DVD reviews and information, check out http://www.animeondvd.com which sports an active community and forum populated by both fans and industry insiders. I used to be very active there - in fact a few of my DVD reviews are still available on the site. I wrote the Wind Named Amnesia review for example

http://www.animeondvd.com/reviews2/disc_reviews/626.php

0ctane · **Posted:** Tue Jan 06, 2004 8:58 am

nekonoko wrote:

Just a note that you can always visit http://www.animesuki.com/ and download some of the fansub torrents archived there.

Is bittorrent reasonable as far as processor usage and how often your machine gets accessed? What OS do you run it on?

nekonoko · **Posted:** Tue Jan 06, 2004 9:13 am

It's reasonable if you use something like the SHAD0W client which allows for upload rate throttling (available at http://www.bt.degreez.net ). I run it under Linux (screenshot), but it should also work with IRIX using wxPython:

http://www.nekochan.net/wiki/downloads/wxPyt ... .4.tardist

I haven't found a (native GUI) throttling client for Mac OS X yet though one of the X11 based ones could probably be made to work. The native package can be found at http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/download.html but it will consume all of your available bandwidth without much trouble.

Edit: Found one for OS X:

http://sarwat.net/bittorrent/

Just checked it out and you can manually enter upload/download rates. Looks to be pretty nice!

Hakimoto · **Posted:** Tue Jan 06, 2004 12:08 pm

Neko!!! Is that LINUX? Man... that looks amazing with that OS X theme... can you name the apps in the top left hand corner? The status monitor thingy? And how did you get the image into the sidebars? I should spend more time with my lappie toppie...

nekonoko · **Posted:** Tue Jan 06, 2004 12:49 pm

Hakimoto wrote:

Neko!!! Is that LINUX? Man... that looks amazing with that OS X theme... can you name the apps in the top left hand corner? The status monitor thingy? And how did you get the image into the sidebars? I should spend more time with my lappie toppie...

Sure, the topmost is gDesklets running the Psi sensors and displays package. Underneath is gDeskCal with LCD skin. For the Nautilus sidebar I just created an image about the right size (200x1000 in this case) and drag/dropped in place.

The Gnome OS X theme is called Glossy P and you can get it here.

semi-fly · **Posted:** Tue Jan 06, 2004 1:15 pm

nekonoko wrote:

Hakimoto wrote:

Neko!!! Is that LINUX? Man... that looks amazing with that OS X theme... can you name the apps in the top left hand corner? The status monitor thingy? And how did you get the image into the sidebars? I should spend more time with my lappie toppie...

Sure, the topmost is gDesklets running the Psi sensors and displays package. Underneath is gDeskCal with LCD skin. For the Nautilus sidebar I just created an image about the right size (200x1000 in this case) and drag/dropped in place.

The Gnome OS X theme is called Glossy P and you can get it here.

I've had problems running gDesklet apps under fluxbox (my perferred wm); some display don't want to work properly and some refuse load. I have to admit though, they are pretty sweet.

squeen · **Posted:** Tue Jan 06, 2004 1:28 pm

Are the gDesklets real transparent windows, or are they just imprinted on the root window?

nekonoko · **Posted:** Tue Jan 06, 2004 1:37 pm

squeen wrote:

Are the gDesklets real transparent windows, or are they just imprinted on the root window?

They're imprinted - we won't see true transparent windows under X11 until the KDrive X11 server is completed (it's in alpha at the moment - still pretty cool though).

Ref:

http://xserver.freedesktop.org/
http://xserver.freedesktop.org/Software ... entWindows
http://freedesktop.org/~keithp/screenshots/

semi-fly · **Posted:** Tue Jan 06, 2004 2:37 pm

KDrive does look amazing.

0ctane · **Posted:** Tue Jan 06, 2004 4:31 pm

I use gDesklets also, but I prefer the LTVariations displays/sensors. I was thinking of trying to compile it for IRIX, but it requires the latest python (well, at least 2.2) which I cannot get to compile. Apparently there is a "known" bug that makes 2.2 and 2.3 unable to compile under IRIX, but the developers don't seem to care much about it/us. Then there are a few other dependancies that would need to be compiled also. Sigh.
BTW, what is wxPython's relation to Python? I suppose I could look it up, but ...

Nekochan Net

Suggestions?

Who is online