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Anime

Lain Discussion Panel At Otakon 115

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
Lawrence Eng writes: "At Otakon 2000 earlier this month, the producer and character designer of Serial Experiments Lain, Yasuyuki Ueda and Yoshitoshi ABe, answered questions at a Lain discussion panel. The full transcript of that discussion, the IRC transcript of the talk with Ueda and ABe that took place the day after the convention, and other related interviews can be found here. I thought people might appreciate a chance to look into the minds of the Lain creators."
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Lain Discussion Panel at Otakon More

Lain Discussion Panel at Otakon

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  • Uhh this is no more off-topic than Cowpland leaving Corel. If you like to read about Corel more than you like to read about Anime, filter out the "anime" category but leave the "Corel" category.

  • In the meantime, there's always Nanako (boing boing)!

    Uhhh... I've watched Amazing Nurse Nanako today, and I was less than unimpressed by it - if a decent plot and/or story are also (seemingly) considered fan service these days, then I'd rather have that sort than the "boing boing" one... *urgh*

    (Having a whiny ditz constantly being abused by her "superior" as a main character of course doesn't help the series, either... :( )

    Concerning the rest of your post - I'm a fan of the first Armitage III OVAs, and I definitely want more of that - the original ending left far too much open... oh, and I have to agree that the OVA dub is much better than the movie one, but I guess you haven't even heard the horror that the German dub of the movie is... *blech* made me shell out quite a lot for the Japanese DVD that thankfully contains the original English dub as well, if only to reassure me that there was a good story hidden under all that horrible German voice "acting"...)

    np: Underworld - Tongue (DubNoBassWithMyHeadMan)


    As always under permanent deconstruction.

  • actually, those were all from memory/bookmarks. and yes, im being a karma whore.
  • So go to your preferences page and filter out of Anime section. If you don't like anime, yet still feel compelled to click on this thread and post a reply saying how much you don't like anime, that's your problem.
  • It is, and I quote: "News for nerds, stuff that matters"

    And that is a very irreverent thought as well. Everything on this site is meant to be fun, newsworthy, entertaining, illuminating, useful, interesting, whatever. At least, to the people who filter out the stories.

    If you want to run a site that is software and circuitry, grab slashcode and set it up yourself. I like the variety. Sometimes I want to see news about latest processors. Sometimes I want politics. Sometimes I want movies. Sometimes I want something new. Slashdot has done well, so far, in providing this. It isn't a politics page, a science page, a software page, a law page, a news page, or anything else.

    It does Linux and Legos, anime, IP rights, DVDs, toys and technology, science, whatever. And it works.

    The nick is a joke! Really!

  • Lain came before the Matrix. (Score:3)

    by Maul ( 83993 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2000 @02:45PM (#852823) Journal
    There is no way that the Lain creators could have possibly ripped the Matrix off, since they were working on Lain before the Matrix was released.

    The two have a lot in common superficially, but if you actually watch all 13 episodes of Lain, you'll see that the two are like night and day.

    The US release of Lain happened after everyone saw the Matrix, so a lot of misinformed people on this side of the ocean think that Lain ripped off the Matrix, when in fact it did not.

  • I like the whispering speech synthetizer voice that announces the episode's name

    As explained on Lawrence Eng's fan page [cjas.org], that voice is in fact called Whisper, and it comes standard on every Mac [apple.com].

    And while I'm posting anyways, I have a question about Otakon -- why is it so dang expensive? I would have loved to drop by for a couple hours and browse for some DVDs, but the door price was over $20.

    Yeah, yeah, I'm know I'm not a real otaku. But why doesn't a big con like that set aside a section as an admission-free space for vendors to sell goodies to the public at large? The Baltimore Convention Center [baltimore.org] has 7 Halls, 4 Ballrooms, and 50 meeting rooms, and I'm pretty sure Otakon rented the whole thing that weekend.

  • As much as i like SEL, Evanagelion still reigns as my favorite. Since Antartica is still there as i write this, i guess second impact did not occur. darn.
  • Do you think that the common audience between Lain and Slashdot is equal to or greater than the audience Moby (Radiohead, Sneaker Pimps, Korn, Talking Heads, Debussy, whatever) and Slashdot share? perhaps. then, why do we never see any articles about music? Because it's not primarily a technological field. If we begin to accept articles about anime, why can't we accept articles about a new release by Pantera, or even perhaps the launch of a new digital mixing board from Yamaha? i've never seen anything like that on slashdot before, and i don't expect to. IMHO entirely too many things get flushed from the submission queue simply because the people who run slashdot don't think it's cool enough. that is just how it works i guess, but it's a shame. -matt
  • it's all a giant conspiracy!
  • +1 Insightful?

    The links are there for a reason. The reason? To give context to the story. What you're asking for is the equivilant of asking for a cookie when you already have it in your hand. Take 10 seconds of your time to click the link and read a little bit.
  • Just keep in mind whose site it is and that you can always check the little box to keep from seeing topics you don't like.

    You people simply DON'T READ. Look at the rest of this thread, Phil. You are redundant, redundant, redundant. And by the way, I hate Star Wars too.
  • Oh really? ;)

    Transformers was produced in Japan but that doesn't make it Anime (well, obviously). Transformers wasn't anime in the slightest. Anyway, the chief animator wasn't japanese, he called anime "to easy" on many occasions, and the japanese influence ammounted to "here japanese person, draw the frames inbetween these stills".

    I'm talking about whatever I can see on TV. Admitedly there are some kickass anime movies, maybe even a series or two that i've missed -- where the animators have bothered to draw more than two frames every second -- but the likes of Pokémon and Dragonball Z, and so many other voltron wannabes and cack like that are all lazy animation.

    Their nature is lazy. They draw the hero in a pose and parallax the background round him while the hero trembles in a strangely fake `Dr Katz` type way.

    I don't believe for a second that this type of animation style -- as done so predominately in many (no not all, but many) Anime -- is because it's an artistic vision. It's lazy.

    (oh, and to that idiot moderator - cheers; how about considering some people may have a different opinion and aren't just out there to get a reaction.)

  • I am INCREDIBLY INTRESTED in anime, most anime is science fiction based, and thats what appeals to the real scientist. To quote Bruce Sterling "Science fiction writers are the court jesters of the hard science world". So its nice to sit back relax and watch a nice intelligent science based piece of fiction, not to mention the incredibile art work. If you shop for anime at a porn shop you really dont know what your talking about. In essence SHUT YO TRAP BIZTACH!
  • You know, I consider myself a geek and I feel at home at Slashdot until they go and post something like this. Shouldn't this be on a website dedicated to anime news?

    Last I checked, Slashdot was "News for Nerds". Isn't this "News for Nerds"?
  • I'm just testing something with Slashdot, ignore this message.
  • More to the point...

    If you watch the "Making of..." on the DVD the Watchaski(sp?) Brothers explicitly state that the idea of the Matrix comes from an Anime series. Now which Anime series features computers as much as Lain. No, I rather think that Matrix was made because of Lain.

    David "Dragon" Cotterill
    President: London Anime Club [anime.org.uk].

  • Man, why do people keep on posting things like this?

    So you are saying that you only want to see info on very strict categories that the majority of all slashdot readers agree are worthy. Wow, if only slashdot were really like that - imagine how great...zzZZZZzzZZzz...oh, sorry I fell asleep just thinking about how boring that would be.

    If slashdot didn't "alienate" me once in a while, I would stop reading it! I don't know about you, but I like being exposed to new things - it gets really boring reading story after story about Napster or the latest update for **insert random product here**.

    -------

  • GRR (Score:3)

    by emufreak ( 83564 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2000 @05:53PM (#852837) Homepage
    People, if you don't like anime, CHECK THE EXCLUDE BOX FOR ANIME ON YOUR PREFERENCES. Then you won't even have the opportunity to start screaming about anime being a "genre" (it's a MEDIUM) in which people get raped by tentacles (and it isn't -- all you've being watching is hentai if you think this is so).

    I don't apologize for this sounding like a rant, because it is. I'm rather annoyed, and I think that all of the other otaku out there who read Slashdot are also, because they too have to go wading through a bunch of crappy posts by uninformed people just to read anything of value.

    Please, for the love of God, if you don't like anime, check "the box."

    Now watch me get moderated down for this post by some moderator just because they don't like anime. >_
  • The Vision of Escaflowne is a GREAT anime series that's Different in style. It's still very anime, but also very refreshing. At first the Doonesbury-like facial features kinda weird you out, but you get used to it pretty quickly as you lose yourself in the story. All in all Escaflowne rates right up there in my anime top 10, together with Lain, Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion, Bubblegum Crisis and, ohwell, I guess most Anime lovers a kind of similar top 10 :)

    )O(
    Never underestimate the power of stupidity

  • Most definitely. :-) What was really sad was when said people got moderated up for doing exactly that. My view is that its Rob's news site, and he can put what he wants on it.


    -RickHunter
  • I enjoyed Lain, moreso for visuals and settings than story..and to compare it to the Matrix, I dunno...which was in production first? Not that that even matters since Media has been recycled over and over for a long time now. If you had seen Lain first, THEN the Matrix you may be argueing that all Hollywood does is rip off Anime.....
    AND why hasn't Pokey the Penguin been updated in many weeks?? I'm beginning to get concerned...that strip is very intellectual...its like a MENSA comic strip!LOL!
    I need Pokey UPDATED!
  • There was a PC in Tachibana General Labs, iirc.
  • As one friend to another, I must clue you people in.

    *lain* is not the same as *laid*. If you think that getting lain is the same as getting laid, please check again.

    We geeks won't become the sex symbols of the 21st century if we can't even get the slang right. :-)

  • Belive me I had mod access last week and I'm wishing I had it now.

    I love anime but I'm about to block the topic cause all people do is complain inside the discussion forum.
  • meta-moderation obviously isn't working. It doesn't have enough teeth to make any real changes.
    ---
    Solaris/FreeBSD/Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Linux/ultrix/OSF /...
  • This was another benefit of being at Otakon this year, Boa, the band that performs the theme song was also there. (Some of the band were even on our floor of the hotel, woohoo!) Definitely a great band that I hope doesn't get trashed when the debut in the states next year. Here's [clara.co.uk] their official website. Root for them when they release here in Q1 next year... they are a great band and great people.

    (And no, I don't represent the band. I'm only a groupie. :)
  • Pretentious, sure. Crap, no.

    You own whining basically pronounces the fact that you didn't understand the purpose of the series, which was to invoke discussion and thought. The "plot", such as it was, was left intentionally vague so that each individual was free to make their own interpretations. If you actually read the transcript, you would know this (they actually state that they left it intentionally vague). The point was to make you question your perspective of reality. You take away from it what you chose to. If you got nothing from it, then it's only your own fault. It's not meant to be a story: it's a conversation piece. :)

    And with regards to people who feel that posts about this series are off topic because of it being anime, they are incorrect. Much of the imagery used is easier for people in the technology sector to relate to than anyone else. We tend to have a VERY different perspective on life, the universe, and everything than most people do. For example, I'm sure that you've experienced a situation where you're out with a group of friends, and start letting loose with techie talk with one of your friends, while the rest of them look at you like you've got 7 heads and a bag of marbles hanging from one of your noses. That's the same view you seem to be taking of Lain. Get the picture? :)

    -Packgrog

    Coffee is mother, Coffee is father
  • I think that after a certain point, you can't get moderated up. I've had a few highly rated posts recently and my karma is stuck at exactly the same point - 6.02E23.

  • Hopefully you are simply joking when you call something jap filth. And if you are not joking, then you are simply ignorant, and you sound racist. Also, I can't believe how many ignorant people post on slashdot. Seriously people, why in the hell do we have to fight about an anime? I've seen Lain; I like anime; Lain is pretty fucked up; Lain is interesting. OK, look! I spoke my opinion! I'll be damned, I think i'm allowed to do that right? Would everyone just frickin calm down over this?

    Anyways, I personally think its interesting to read about anime news on slashdot. I'm no huge anime fan, but I know plenty of geeks like me are. So I have respect for other people in the tech community, many of you should learn to do the same.

    There's my two cents...well maybe a wooden nickel's worth...

    -=MeMpHiStO=-
  • Right. Most anime in the US was available years ago in Japan. Just like they wait a while to release US films in other countries (not as long, but US film isn't exactly a cottage industry in other countries).

    Incidentally, this "lag" also has an effect on aesthetic comparisons. Up until a few of the recent theatrical releases of anime (GITS, Mononoke) films, it was tough to explain to people how far ahead of the curve some anime art is compared to the Disnified bullshit you see in the US, especially when your comparing post-Beauty and the Beast US anim and basically late-80s anime. Those two recent releases sure have made a world of difference for those of us who've been into it for a while.

    For the people who say it doesn't belong on /.: clearly many of us appreciate it, these posts get tons of replies and are appreciated by many of us. The first few had complaints of "you need an Iicon for Anime so I can block it out" all over the place. Well you got your icon, so go into your user page and block it out. Same for you Katz haters.

    As for me: Nested, Oldest First, -1, every day for two years.

    -jpowers
  • ...Lain isn't insightful, it isn't "deep"; it's a bunch of meaningless, pretentious crap.

    Yeah, a lot of people decide out of ignorace to make fun of that which they simply don't understand...

    ...It just goes to show you that anime never does anything more than pilfer and reuse all the good ideas from Western media.

    Also, although I haven't seen nearly as much anime as a "real" otaku should, I haven't seen any that give me the impression that all anime does is reuse ideas from Western media. Besides, I haven't seen all that many good American TV shows or movies (besides the occasional few) lately...

  • a)Why is Slashdot posting all this anime crap? Jeez, I'm a geek and I don't like it... it's all derivative.

    Thank you for professing to speak for every "geek" around. I'm white, and I speak for all white people when I say you're an imbecile.

    b)It's time for Cmdr Taco to grow up and out of watching this crap. Sure, I watched it in college, but then I became more mature when my friends told me that it wasn't cool to watch anime any more and switched to watching arthouse films. They're really deep, and everyone can learn something from the artful insights of their powerful symbolism.

    In the same breath that you call for CT to grow up, you explain that "your friends" told you it wasn't cool to watch anime anymore, so you stopped. How grown up of you. I'm thinking that "cool" or "grown up" on YOUR scale is a place I don't want to be.

    d)This doesn't belong here. This is news for nerds. I am a nerd and I don't see this as news.

    Again, thank you for speaking for everyone. I don't remember making you our spokesperson, but perhaps I was out on the day of the vote. Personally, I found it an interesting read, and I find it hard to believe that you feel you're sufficiently important to decide what belongs here. Scary.

    In short...I hope this was a joke designed to poke fun at the other whiners, otherwise it's just sad.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • And you don't seem to understand,
    You seem more like a troll than man.
    And all those posts you hold so dear
    Should be crammed in your ear.

    And you know I mean to beat on you,
    But you don't really mean very much.......

    Heheh now all you Lain fans will have the intro tune stuck in your head for hours! muaahahahah... Anime is great and just because the simplton trolls cannot think about what they watch it doesn't mean it sucks. Come on you trolls would rather criticize a movie's credits' font than actually enjoy the movie itself!

  • I have to agree, plastering it up on Slashdot is a bit odd, seeing as how it really is something that one would consider a hobbyist thing, like building model rockets, ham radio, or flying remote control airplanes...

    ...or working on open-source-bound code, I suppose.


    --

  • I probably got here too late for this to be moderated, or even viewed, so likely no-one will see this, but:

    A link for those people who want to learn more about Serial Experiments Lain:

    http://www.anipike.com/series5.html

    has a list of all sorts of pages devoted to Lain. Hopefully that's all the explanation people need. It is a worthwhile series to view, if you like anime, and if you wish to view something which asks questions about reality and our place in it. That, and the intro song is pretty good.
  • I know that this will most likely not change your mind about the subject of anime, but from some of the comments that you have made it is clear that you have had exposure to the darker side of anime (the half that more in common with porn). If Urotsokudoji is all that you have seen from the genre (I don't believe that it is just any other genre... more like a set of sub-genres) you would see that anime is much more than character drawings of guys with "six dicks".

    Take for instance Lain. Lain's subject matter has more in common with scifi movies like The Matrix than with porn. Lain has little if any sexual content. In fact I think Trinity and Neo are more overtly sexual in several scenes than in any scene from the entire 13 episodes of Lain.

    I think what is so special about anime is that it tends to be very diverse. You name a genre and I bet that you could find an anime title that would fit right in. Yes the /. contributors and editors tend to concentrate on anime titles that have most in common with scifi and fantasy, but there are plenty of other titles out there that don't fit into either of those genres (take for instace many of the anime movies directed by Miyazaki).

    one last parting shot... when was the last time you saw an american movie that did a cyberpunk theme that did not turn into a "shoot'em up"?
  • I knew there were some Apple and other computer references in Lain, like "Think Different" and even stuff like "Copland OS," but one of the pages [cjas.org] on the link in the parent article has a lot more that I never heard of before or didn't notice, like "Navi" is an Apple reference?! And I've been a Mac fan for years. The mock "think different" ad is pretty funny, too.
  • holy shit people.

    did anyone get the fact that this guy is joking?!? and Flamebait? try Funny next time.

    i really want some of the crack that the moderators are smoking today.

  • Me too! Hey, maybe because its good? Hmmm.
  • Well, i can pretty much say that i've seen quite a few anime classics

    Akira, Vampyre Hunter D, Ghost in the Shell (which i own). But it's always seemed to me that many fans of the genre (yes, i'm still going to call it a genre) are too into the mob mentality. If something comes out, it's immediately worth watching because it's good. personally, i thought Wings Of Honnemease(sp) sucked. I thought the Urotsockudoji series sucked. As far as i'm concerned, anime is just like everything else in this world. %99 of it sucks...the rest is DEFINITELY worth watching.


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • Give Ghost in the Shell a chance, too. (Hey at least when I re-watch it 10 times it doesn't take me 130 hours! Only 20.)
  • Become enlightened? Reincarnate as something better? :)

    I thought a sentient computer was as far up the ladder as you could go...

  • See, Latin is on the rise again - everyone is speaking it now - even in Latin discussion panels. Now I guess I should brush up on my ero eris erit erimus eritus erunt. Sheesh, and I just had a good use for the pluperfect tense.

    Oh, wait, you mean to tell me this has nothing to do with the Roman Language??? Stercus!

    Extra Linux Non Es Vita!
  • As much of a fan as Anime, I have to agree, plastering it up on Slashdot is a bit odd, seeing as how it really is something that one would consider a hobbyist thing, like building model rockets, ham radio, or flying remote control airplanes (or even being in the Jerry Springer fanclub, which you know has to exist!)

    Rob, please stop. You know well more than half are derisive comments, and it simply isn't worth posting here. OK? -_-;;
  • Lain is one of my favorite anime series, and with regards to whether or not it should be posted on /., there's nothing wrong with it being posted. I, for one, enjoy it when there is an anime post on /. I consider myself a geek, and I think that many geeks do enjoy their anime. I am careful to say that not all geeks enjoy anime - as they all don't - which is shown by many of the "Stop posting this sh*t on /." posts. However, I think there are as many people who enjoy anime posts as there are people who enjoy Space posts, and who enjoy posts about games for Linux. /. posts many things for many different people and their interests.

    Anyway, back to my subject - Lain. Cafe-Lain [cafe-lain.net] is a nice site for people who enjoy Lain as well as other anime. I highly recommend it.
  • Actually, a Mac-user friend of mine tells me that the OS the Navis use (can't remember the name,) was one of the great MacOS vaporware versions before OSX. It was supposed to be this mind-blowing cool revolutionary OS, then they dumped it, and incorporated parts into OSX.
  • I'm reading up at +3 and the posts I see are, at best stupid and offtopic. I can only hope that meta-mod cleans up some of this kind of crap:
    1.5 article bitching about how bad the front page was today

    2 articles bitching about how anime doesn't belong on slashdot.

    1.5 articles telling them how to not read a topic

    2 OTHER stuff
    5 actually even remotely about lain


    So, over 50% OT posts moderated at +3.

    To avoid being OT, myself; I rented lain about a week ago, and watched the first two episodes... It looked like it could be really cool, but it was in Japanese, so I couldn't really tell. My local video store had one of the recalled copies, the ones that Pioneer accidentally forgot to include the English dub on.
    What really frightens me is that when they pulled up the movie's file and it showed 20-30 people had rented the movie, and not said anything about it not being in English...
  • You gotta admit, the opening line "present day, present time, hahahaha..." is pretty funny, and quite possibly the best part of the series!
    I like the whispering speech synthetizer voice that announces the episode's name: "Layer Zero One ... Weird"

    (...)and liked the intro/ending song.
    Great song! The group is called BOA, the song, Duvet. Look for the extended accoustic version on Nap__er, it's got great guitar works!
    ---

  • I am wearing a Lain t-shirt right.now!

    <insert freaky organ music here>
  • hmm considering these guys were working on it long before the Matrix every came out, I have a hard time excepting your "good ideas from Western media" theory.

    Actually I would venture I guess that some of our
    better programs and movie come from a decidely non-Western influence.

    Come down off your Western Civilization high horse and enjoy the Global Economy

  • Hrm. (Score:1)

    by cybin ( 141668 )
    Anyone think perhaps CmdrTaco is just earning his paycheck by posting stories that benefit VA Linux and/or Andover? Perhaps this LAME anime shit has something to do with that. Maybe the same reason why copyleft isn't linked anymore. "Clothe yourself in commercialism".
  • The new anime icon is, as far as I can tell, Sasami of Tenchi Muyo and Magical Girl Pretty Sammy fame. Definitely a step up from the previous anime icon.
  • then it's time to get some scaffolding.
  • Would that be Armitage III II? :) Anyway, Pioneer is working on a follow up movie to Armitage III as you read this and should be out in early 2001. Let's just hope that after Showgirls, Elizabeth Berkeley's career is dead Dead DEAD and that she won't return to go the English dub on this Armitage. The first dub by the no-name VAs was far superrior... even... dare I say it? Yes, even over the original JP audio track. Especially D'anclaude.

    In the meantime, there's always Nanako (boing boing)!

  • Check the preferences page. There is a section for Anime...check it off and you won't have to read them. Check it off and go away.
  • And yet, with only a few exceptions, anime has far more uniform and uncreative character design than any western animations this side of Hannah Barbara.

    Why is that?

    Because when you can't come up with decent scripts and plots, you have to create goofy character designs to compensate.

    Anyway, want some 'interesting' character designs? Watch Urotsukidoji. *_*


    --

  • It is one of the most interesting philosophical debates i've seen on what is the net, what effect does the net have on people, etc. It is not about ninjas or demons or typical anime action. Very thoughtful, and has examples of the best-looking user interfaces i've ever seen. Wouldn't you want her navi program on your box? I don't think anyone whose trashed this being on slashdot has actually watched it or paid attention to the tech. I mean, the scene where lain has completely rewired her room to be this tech fortress, it's the equivalent of porn for overclockers and hardware geeks.

  • You know, I consider myself a geek and I feel at home at Slashdot until they go and post something like this. Shouldn't this be on a website dedicated to anime news?

    Hey Rob, I know this is your site and you should run it the way you see fit. But Slashdot has grown to become a monster that means a lot to a lot of people. I'm sure there's lots of geeks out there that enjoy anime, but I'm sure there are MANY more anime fans who AREN'T geeks.

    The fact is, this story does not belong on Slashdot. Let's stick to software and circuitry.
  • I was actually watching lain (again) while this story was posted.
    --------

  • Lain Links an other stuff (Score:4)

    by bludstone ( 103539 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2000 @02:18PM (#852880)
    okay...


    Here is a link to an interesting Lain site, Thought Experiments Lain. [cjas.org] It has spoilers galore, and a good explanation of the computer, literary and historical references in the anime. Don't visit the site unless youve seen Lain in its entierty and are trying to make some sense of it.

    Here's a link to my little' 'ol Lain Gallery [slack.net]. With plenty of pretty pictures for you to look at.

    I was also at otakon, but I went to the bandai panel instead of Lain. Got an interview with the guys for atanime.com [atanime.com] too. (eep, shameless self promotion!) BTW, did anyone else who was there think that BOA's Performace at otakon was sub-par?

    Anipike [anipike.com] has plenty of links for other stuff.

    Personally, I loved this anime and found it intriguing. Yes, I do think it is VERY pretencious, but that just part of the experience. When doing an anime like this, its impossible to avoid it. Eva was amazingly pretencious too. Lain is currently my favorite set of anime dvds, and if you havnt seen it yet, I honestly reccomend checking it out.

    Okay, Im done..
  • Well, I'm an avid anime watcher (though I can't say I've seen Lain besies on shirts and pictures) and I see no problem whatsoever regarding anime on slashdot. All of my "geek" friends who have reason to associate with slashdot love anime. There is always more anime that is terrific, not just the stuff people like vertical-limit don't like. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all! Just my two cents worth.

  • Setup and character introductions? Well, I _still_ don't have a fscking clue what's going on, or who's who, or why they call her "Nurse" when she's obviously the maid (not to mention that a nurse like her will most likely make the body count of the hospital skyrocket), and so on...

    Sorry, but if the first 2 (of only 6) episodes suck, I don't think the rest is worth my time... it was a jump into unknown waters for me, so to say, as the series hasn't been out much longer in Japan than in the US, but I already feel sorry for the shipment costs I've paid for the DVD... :(

    (Maybe you've seen the series and already know the rest of the story, but starting a series with a big letdown definitely doesn't help it; if it get's better by epsiode 3, Pioneer should've made only 2 discs with 3 episodes each, hoping that the 3rd ep would keep people interested...)

    Still, if there's "real" humour (as opposed to sick jokes, old cliches and toilet humour) somewhere in there, I seem to "plain old just don't get it"(TM), and neither seem all those people posting in the AnimeOnDVD fora, most of which are also quite angry about their acquisition...

    Now if only Cowboy Bebop were more than 26 episodes - too bad it's only 8 more to go... :(

    np: Underworld - Mother Earth (DubNoBassWithMyHeadMan)


    As always under permanent deconstruction.

  • You gotta admit, the opening line "present day, present time, hahahaha..." is pretty funny, and quite possibly the best part of the series! Lain is much overrated. Although its the only anime DVD I bought, it was more 'cuz it appealed to my mac-geek side, and liked the intro/ending song. The story was too ambiguous and it doesn't come close to Evangelion when it comes to being profound. Gainax and Studio Ghibli's works are much better. As far as 13 eps OAV is concerned, Record Of the Lodoss Wars was better.
  • perhaps i should give myself a -1 redundant for linking to the site in the article itself.

    blah. oops, teach me to ignore the other links on the articles from now on ^^;;

  • Not *entirely* anime related, but... (Score:3)

    by Shaheen ( 313 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2000 @03:54PM (#852885) Homepage
    AnimeOnDVD.Com [animeondvd.com] is basically the source for anime on DVD news. This past Monday, the site's main artist - Bethany Neal (who drew the marvelous Divi-Chan [animeondvd.com]) and her husband, Justin, passed away in a car accident.

    I don't know the details since that's what was posted on AnimeOnDVD. There is an address to send condolences to the family:

    Bethany and Justin Neal
    130 SW 112th Street
    Seattle, Washington 98146

    More information is here [animeondvd.com].

    [rant] It was probably some moron who felt he could drive while having a beer. Fucking morons. [/rant]
  • heh.... little do you know that Transformers was
    originally done in Japan :)

    If you want to compare good anime verses animation done by disney I think you should take a look at some of Miyazaki's movies (Nausica of the Valley of the Wind, Laputa, Porco Roso). Any of his movies would put any but some of the very oldest disney movies to shame.
  • speaking as a hardcore otaku, i'm kinda disappointed that so many geeks are so closeminded about anime. most of my friends are hardcore linux geeks and i try really hard to understand what they feel strongly about. However, reading through a lot of these posts i see a lot of ignorant people who don't even want to bother to take the time to understand what they're talking about. perhaps you should do some research before you start putting stuff down. as for Lain, i can totally see why something about this series in particular is posted! if you have a question about why this is up there, go check Lain out and stop bitching about stuff you don't know anything about.
  • When did anyone on /. ever claim to be open-minded?
  • Oi, anime kankei suru posuto uke irerarenai hito!

    Anime suki ja nakereba, sono posuto yomuna yo! Sonna ni kantan da. konpyuuta kankei no posuto to anime kankei no posuto to, konpyuuta no hou ga ooinda kara, anime posuto ga areba, komaranai deshou. Baka ja naide.

    Koitsu... Konpyuuta no tsukaikata ha wakarukedo yasui hito ni narikata ha zenzen wakannai...

    Anime no suki hito: Lain tanoshimou!

    Nihongo dekinai nara, ki ni shinaide.
    Sore wo paipu ni irete suiro.
  • Not that your post should have been moderated down, but it certainly didn't warrant a +1 Insightful. Unless Insightful means "can't figure out a preferences page." You probably honestly didn't realize this, but you can simply uncheck the boxes for any subjects you're not interested in (I know I don't like hearing about the latest book reviews, for example). Many people on this site do care about anime. Those who don't can uncheck it in their preferences. It's gone!
  • as a frequent slashdot reader, i'll add my voice to the fire: i don't think of /. as just a "computers-n-such" site, and i found the lain discussion to be very interesting.

    this site may be viewed by some as computer-specific, but the fact is that it also tends to pick up some of the more interesting -- and oftentimes elsewhere-neglected -- stories from across the spectrum that tend to be of interest to those of us involved in the "tech" side of life. lain may not have the social importance of linux or MPAA v. 2600; but if, to some degree, "lain" and slashdot share an audience, then that community is all the 'relevance' that the story needs to belong on this site.

    cmdrtaco: thanks for the post. i wouldn't have read the transcript otherwise, and i'm glad that i did.

    crib

  • Re:Rant (Score:1)

    by nmx ( 63250 )

    Well, it's not really "the boys at slashdot" who decide these things. CmdrTaco is the one who posts all the Anime stuff, because, hey, he likes it. And it's his site. If you don't like it, turn it off. As I reminded another poster above, you can still read /. for everything else; all you have to do is uncheck the Anime option in your preferences!

    This may be a bit redundant but I'm just trying to help out :)

  • 6 points wasted on my post that clearly labeled itself as off topic. the moderation system is broken. i offered a possible fix, one that many other have offered up as well.

    lets do something about it.

    ---
    Solaris/FreeBSD/Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Linux/ultrix/OSF /...
  • Seeing as how Lain was out in Japan before Matrix entered production, I'd have to say that the idea-thieving was the other way around. The directors of Matrix said they took ideas from Anime -- guess which one was high on the list?

    And the "What is the Wired" slogan you refer to never to my knowledge appeared anywhere with relation to Lain (okay, maybe it was said once in the series). The slogan is "Exit the world enter the nExt", a clear neXt reference, which Lain is full of. If you can't remember what the slogan is, no wonder you can't remember anything happening.

    Or, in a word: THWACK.

    P.S. This is still a dumb thing to post on /.
  • heh, lain is definatly one of my favorites - thank you very much for the links! :)

  • I'll probably get modded out of existence for responding to the offtopic part of your message, but I think there's a simple explanation for part of that disparity - inexperienced moderators. People who don't know about the "topic checkbox" will mod up the posts that complain about topics they don't like. People who know about the checkbox, but are still so new that they think no one else does, will mod up any post that tells someone how to use it, thinking that it's useful information. This is a big problem, though it really should be discussed over in sid=moderation.

    Sorry bout the OT-ness. TMTAR (to make this anime related): Tylor.

  • Wow, I didn't expect such a response to my post. Hmm..where to begin.

    Look guys, I know Slashdot is all about openness, so on, and so forth. But let's face it: what are most of the stories about? Chips, Linux, the Internet, your rights online... are we starting to detect a pattern? It just seems like Anime is the only one that doesn't much fit. Aside from the occasional "it's funny.. laugh" or quickie, when we talk about Slashdot we're talking about a techie site.

    Anime has nothing to do with any of that. It's art. Sure, I could uncheck the box in my preferences saying that I don't want to see stories about anime, but you know what? I haven't felt the need to do that for any OTHER topic so far. Not every story posted interests me, but at least they all seem to belong. This just seems like a fringe interest of Rob's or something.

    Anyway, I guess if Slashdot were MY site, I wouldn't care about morons who write posts like mine, but I am entitled to my opinion and I think it makes a lot of sense. Whether you want to believe it or not, there IS a loose definition of a geek in place here on Slashdot, and it involves computers, not entertainment.
  • got a garage full of the stuff I could sell you cheap, except of course for the UK -> US container rental/tansport prices, and of course the fact I enjoy the stuff way more than any pleasure a T1 could give me, then again my favourite game as a kid was jumping out of the top of large pine trees and sliding down. I've heard you can do wonderfull stuff with bamboo though. And anyway isn't it worth it to trancend this short brutal /. existence?
  • Give Ghost in the Shell a chance, too.
    Yes, give Ghost in the Shell a chance: read the manga. ^_^
  • Actually, I think karma has been frozen for a week or two now. When my karma stopped moving, I also noticed a lot of others complaining about their karma being stuck. My guess is that it's a recently added bug.
  • seems pretty broad...whatever that nerd Rob feels is news, and whatever matters to him...

    Sure is, and i would filter but sometimes the Anime topic is kinda cool. As I said, I like anime. I just thought this post was a little ridiculous. And I was bored. And had karma to burn. I always forget to hit that stupid "no score +1 bonus" button. Which I also think is ridiculous. Why, just because I've been here long enough to accidentaly accumulate some karma, should I automaticaly be assumed to be worth reading more than any other logged-in user? This post was sort of an experiment to see if I could burn some karma off to lose that damn bonus, but it didn't work that well. Oh well.
  • Cowpland resigns from Corel,
    Indrema allies with Redhat.
    Lokisoft produces BSD games.
    Ge2 released.

    Must be a slow news day :)
  • Just because you don't like anime, doesn't mean you should have a right to tell people what they can and cannot post on their own website. I do find your opinions valid, even though I dissagree with them, and I think that you could give that same respect to others.

    It also seems that you are a weak individual who gives in to peer pressure easily and has to do everything your friends tell you to do just to be "cool" or "mature". Personally, I think watching anime has nothing to do with the intellectual capacity of anyone. I am a very art oriented person, but I definitely see more depth and intelligence in some anime (not all anime mind you) than in a lot of 'artsy' films. Of course, I realize that both have their own styles and ways of portraying different ideas, and so I can appreciate both.

    I hope that you can one day do the same, instead of basing your opinions on the beliefs of other people...

  • Some of the /. crew like it! It thus passes their coolness filter, and they post it.

    *I* like Lain. I think it's entertaining. I think it's deep. I think it's cool. So I read the posts, I write my own.

    *You* think it's crap. You think it's boring and derivative. Cluestick! *thwap* Don't read the submission, don't enter the thread, don't read the posts, and don't dilute the SN ratio with your presence please.

    The nick is a joke! Really!
  • Lain is ALL about software and circuitry. It is the best movie ever about future tech and the net. Want an image of the uber-geek? The guy with all the wearable computers going on and on about how cool he was, how he was so connected, freaking brilliant. If the anime was about computers I think it's relevant. Watch the movie. Look at the user interfaces. Powerful, sleek, look like they came out of a video game rather than a lame version of unix. If the os in lain were real, microsoft would be dead, as would linux. It's what everyone wants and nobody has any idea how to make.
  • It's just another genre.

    No, it's just another medium. 'Anime' is the Japanese word for animation. That the best animated stories seem to come from the Japanese is a side issue.

    There are many different genre in anime, just as there are different types of shows on American TV. Some are for kids, some aren't. Some are comedic, some are dramatic, some are titilating, some are documentary. Some are cute, some are nasty, some are scary.

    There are Japanese terms for the different types, I just don't know them by heart.

    My preference: Good scripts and plausible plots. I also enjoy stories told without the additional baggage of some "star actor's" personal life.


    --

  • Anime has nothing to do with any of that. It's art. Sure, I could uncheck the box in my preferences saying that I don't want to see stories about anime, but you know what? I haven't felt the need to do that for any OTHER topic so far. Not every story posted interests me, but at least they all seem to belong. This just seems like a fringe interest of Rob's or something.
    Wait a second... you think anime-related stories don't belong here because you don't want to go uncheck something from your preferences? Isn't that a just a tad self-centered? And, to be fair, Lain belongs here just as much, if not more, than Star Wars news, which seldom seems to get the vitrolic most anime-related items recieve. Lain has heavy ties with the computer industry, ranging from in-jokes (references to BeOS and NeXT) to philosophy about modern tech. The creator designed the series as a critique of what he sees as a predominantly American and often dehumanizing aesthetic. Even if anime news doesn't belong here (and I would contend it belongs here as much as any other topic), Lain deserves some mention.
  • But he didn't say "I speak for all geeks". And you said you speak for all white people. Well fuck you, I'm a white person and I think anime sucks too.

    So I hope that was a joke to poke fun at the other whiners, etc. etc. etc.

  • Nihongo dekinai nara, ki ni shinaide.
    Riiight... like that's going to do a lot of good.
    Nihongo dekinai kara, kono kotoba wakaran-zo! ^^;

    Sorry if my Japanese sucks, I only studied for 4 years, and I've had a year off, but...

    Suimasen, demo kono posuto wa Eigo de nan desu ka?

    (...aa, mou! Nihongo ga omoidashita kara... atama itte- yo!)

  • Slashdot is, by and large, a techie site (Katz notwithstanding). Not everything on it, however, is purely technical. There are movie reviews, Star Wars news, a lot of science news that isn't really computer-related, and Anime. While much of that isn't completely computer related, many of those things appeal to a large segment of Slashdot's readership.

    It is also helpful to keep in mind that from the days of Chips and Dips, this site been "stuff that Rob and his friends like". Rob and his friends being pretty average geeks, a lot of the things that are interesting to them are interesting to the rest of us, too. Just keep in mind whose site it is and that you can always check the little box to keep from seeing topics you don't like.


    --Phil (Personally, I'm happy that Rob finally got hooked on anime.)

  • I cannot now see a movie or TV show that puts a little "Present Day" at the bottom of the screen at the beginning of the show without thinking to myself, "Present time! Hahahahaha!". On one occasion, when watching such a movie with friends who had also seen Lain, I said it out loud--at the same time they did. Maybe I'm just easily amused sometimes...


    --Phil (I'm going to start on Evangelion soon.)
  • what i do not understand is where there is this great rift of understanding about anime. it is generally recieved as marvelous, and is generally classified as a genre because of a few key factors:
    anime has much more imagination and thoughfulness than anything distinctly american in terms of animation
    anime is not afraid to take cultural and subject-matter related risks
    anime is very high quality, with accomplished artists putting more hours and frames into just average anime filmes than most american animators can claim.
    so i guess people should actually watch anime and/or Lain, specifically, prior to making derogatory comments about it.
    also, being that the slogan is "news for nerds. stuff that matters." one should observe the typical anime otaku (anime-lovers) would be considered nerds. so it matters to them. which i suppose, is a lot of slashdot.
    uhh. thanks for posting about Lain.
    ciao
  • So, you want a 2 line summary of something that isn't easily summarized, so people can get a very, very basic impression of the series (or whatever the topic is), and quite possibly the wrong impression to begin with?

    And if you don't have the time to read the links, what are you doing reading the comments?

  • anime has much more imagination and thoughfulness than anything distinctly american in terms of animation
    anime is not afraid to take cultural and subject-matter related risks
    anime is very high quality, with accomplished artists putting more hours and frames into just average anime filmes than most american animators can claim.

    And yet, with only a few exceptions, anime has far more uniform and uncreative character design than any western animations this side of Hannah Barbara.

    Why is that?

    I like some anime, but why is it all so stylistcally uniform?

    Compare Ren and Stimpy with The Simpsons with, oh, I don't know, pick one -- Angry Beavers? Western cartoons are stylistically all over the map, and most anime looks like it was all drawn by the same guy.

    Its not a bad style, but where's the variety?

  • Re:what i do not understand. (Score:3)

    by quux26 ( 27287 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2000 @09:19PM (#852923) Homepage
    "Its not a bad style, but where's the variety?"

    I want so badly to argue this point but I ...really can't. I have a half-dozen titles (all of Lain, some Evangelion, Macross, a few assorted movies) and you're pretty much correct. I can say that you find some great stories though. I'll agree with the previous poster who said "anime is not afraid to take cultural and subject-matter related risks ". Some examples are Grave of the Fireflies (not nearly as jingoistic as dozens of American movies I can cite), Ghost in the Shell (cybernetics seems to be a taboo here in the states, it's always freakish instead of our evolution).

    Lain is wonderful but very, very tedious. Ghost in the Shell is a classic of course and I'm almost ashamed to admit my affection for Maison Ikokku. =)

    My .02
    Quux26

  • Yea, I usually do &gt_&lt, but I forgot this time. My bad.

    Thanks for telling me anyway. :D

  • Re:Umm, right. (Score:4)

    by pheonix ( 14223 ) <(gro.etaivolbi) (ta) (todhsals)> on Tuesday August 15, 2000 @01:01PM (#852930) Homepage
    -1 Flamebait

    If I were Rob, I'd be reading this trash while humming the tune to "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to" happily to myself. I think it's pretty obvious by now...if you don't want to read about a topic...DON'T READ THE FUCKING TOPIC. This is a simply concept, one would think.

    I laugh everytime I read a comment from some half-assed imbecile that actually took the time to open up a topic they didn't want to read about, click the reply link, and explain how "inappropriate" the content is on slashdot.

    Perhaps someone could enlighten me..what, pray tell, is appropriate content here? News for Nerds, Stuff That Matters....seems pretty broad...whatever that nerd Rob feels is news, and whatever matters to him...

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