The Trenchcoat Anti-Critic

Hey! You can TOTALLY discuss the Trenchcoat Anti-Critic episodes, articles, or ANYTHING ELSE right here.

...I can't think of anything else to post right now.

What's your favorite Miyazaki?

This is a bit of a standard choice I know, but Princess Mononoke. I didn't know a damn thing about anime at the time I saw it, (it wasn't until years later that I had a formal indoctrination to the medium), but Mononoke blew me away. It still does, honestly.

As is a common theme with Miyazaki's work, there are no real bad guys (there may be antagonists, but they aren't evil). Mononoke in particular defied the expected clear-cut sides of the conflict, and gave us a humanitarian leader of an industrialist settlement and a spiritual tropical forest where animal gods walk among the trees. Both sides empathetic, and neither entirely wrong or right, but their differences were tearing them apart.

It's rare to find such a nuanced and mature look at the nature of war in cinema. I honestly can't think of a single film that handles the subject matter better. Not Apocalypse Now, not Platoon, not Saving Private Ryan, and not Das Boot. All great films, but all telling the story of soldiers against an enemy; not the nature of war itself.

So yeah, Miyazaki's made some incredible films but this, to me, is still his masterpiece.

Hey, my favorite will always be Spirited Away, so I'm even more cliche than you are. But you made some very good points about Princess Mononoke, and I definitely agree with them. My favorite aspect of that film is that while it does demonize the humans to an extent, it does still keep them human, and the animals fight dirty just as much as they do, so as you said- clear cut sides with no right or wrong answer.

Also the tree spirits. Gotta love the tree spirits.

Favorite general anime? I'm just asking the anime questions because of your first post, btw.

Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion, Deathnote, Haibane Renmai, Lain, and the Samurai X OAV are fav's of mine. Lain goes a little too far down the rabbit hole about halfway through, though.

Since I'm on the subject, though I might as well talk about some of the conventions that irritate me about anime.

I'm a little unusual in that I'm not a fan of the stylized humor often found in the medium. It takes me out of the moment. That's why I didn't mention Trigun.

I'm not a fan of long running shonen like Naruto, Bleach, Inuyasha etc. I used to have a higher tolerance for this, but I'm not really interested in investing hundreds of hours of my time in a series that is designed to put off any resolution for as long as possible. A simple fight scene should not take longer than the length of a feature film to resolve. And if an episode doesn't tell a story, doesn't develop the characters, and doesn't exist in cannon, it SHOULDN'T EXIST. In my opinion, of course.

Interesting opinion. I'm not too well versed in anime, oddly enough- the only ones I really know at all are the ones I've seen at my school's anime club, and my knowledge of Naruto, DBZ, and Yugioh are pretty much limited to the abridged series.

The only real exception for me is Death Note, for which I've read the manga twice and seen the anime at least three times, so I applaud the fact that you included it among your list of favorites. And yes, I realize that the fact that Death Note is the only one I've seen/read all the way through makes me a poser, but c'est la vie. There are others I'm interested in seeing all the way through where I've only seen parts of them (actually, Evangelion is one of those, since I saw it at my first all night anime and fell asleep due to the 3 in the morning factor, so I missed most of it), but again, have only seen a few episodes. Examples- Kino's Journey, Ghost in the Shell, etc. I tend to go for story over humor, too.

I haven't seen Kino's Journey, but Ghost in the Shell is good. All three movies, actually. I couldn't get into the TV series, even though I understand it to be closer in tone to the manga. The comic relief tank characters grated on me when I tried.

Trigun is worth a look, too. If you can look past the over the top humor stylings of the first few episodes, you'll find a compelling character and some interesting themes.

The Girl Who Jumped Through Time looks really good, but I've yet to have the pleasure. Mostly because I can't find it in my area.