WanderingMind
02-12-2009, 11:49 PM
I would like to hear from anyone what they think of Anime News Network. For those that don't know, Anime News Network is a long running anime website. They have news (hence the name), reviews, features, a comprehensive encyclopedia, and more. I first heard about that site through an anime guide that EGM did back in 2003. I used to rely on that site for my anime needs when I first got into anime and actually looked up their reviews before I purchased a DVD.
The best part about ANN is the encyclopedia. You can look up any title and find info such as the people that worked on it, a plot summary, related links, air dates, and much more. In addition, there are entries for distributors, people, as well as a glossary of frequently used terms.
It wasn't until I started reading anime blogs that I realized that ANN isn't as reliable as I thought it would be. There are people who don't trust the season writeups for new shows and the DVD reviews themselves. I learned that I'm better off staying far away from the forums, although I ignored that part of the site to begin with except for the two times I checked it out.
Here is a mock review of Gurren Lagann I found in the comments of a blog:
Simon may appear to be an average 14 year old boy, but he has a secret: he’s actually a clone created by an evil animation company, imbued with a personality culled from millions of introverted mecha pilots, and sent to suck the life from anime fans who walked into the series expecting quality entertainment. He’s also an honest-to-goodness super robot pilot, or at least he becomes one when he teams up with a shouting swordsman.
…
You don’t know super robot anime until you’ve known Gurren Lagann. Not in the biblical sense of the term of course (though one bathing scene comes awfully close), but in the sense that until you’ve seen Gurren Lagann, you haven’t seen super robot-targeted entertainment taken to its logical extreme. There is nothing, not one scene, line of dialogue, image or plot development in the series that isn’t aimed with laser accuracy at the hardest of hardcore super robot fans. Ridiculous mecha types, fan-favorite genre tropes and cheesecake service shots are just the beginning, and crammed doesn’t even begin to describe the neutron-star density with which the series packs in the super robot obsessions.
…
Gurren Lagann is not without appeal—much of it is stirring and the mecha action is downright cool—it’s just that it’s hard to enjoy it amid the sunglass wearing robots, traffic jams of knowingly recycled plot developments (viva la sudden battlefield gattai!) and ponderous pacing. Had the series devoted a little more time to crafting likeable leads (as opposed to GAR archetypes) and less time to sating appetites for over the top, codified hotblooded manliness, or more time to Hiroishi’s oddball humor and less time to Nakashima’s thinly-disguised phallic fantasies, perhaps the series could have been the modern super robot classic it wants to be. As it stands it is more a monument to otaku tastes than a viable work of entertainment, and an oft-disturbing monument at that.
Overall (dub) : C-
Overall (sub) : C-
Story : D
Animation : B+
Art : B
Music : C
+ Idiosyncratic animation; some potent hotbloodedness.
− Overstuffed, otaku-pandering script and plodding final act; malignant genocidal overtones are a major heebie-jeebie factor.
Source:
http://scottd.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/ann-hates-nanoha/
The best part about ANN is the encyclopedia. You can look up any title and find info such as the people that worked on it, a plot summary, related links, air dates, and much more. In addition, there are entries for distributors, people, as well as a glossary of frequently used terms.
It wasn't until I started reading anime blogs that I realized that ANN isn't as reliable as I thought it would be. There are people who don't trust the season writeups for new shows and the DVD reviews themselves. I learned that I'm better off staying far away from the forums, although I ignored that part of the site to begin with except for the two times I checked it out.
Here is a mock review of Gurren Lagann I found in the comments of a blog:
Simon may appear to be an average 14 year old boy, but he has a secret: he’s actually a clone created by an evil animation company, imbued with a personality culled from millions of introverted mecha pilots, and sent to suck the life from anime fans who walked into the series expecting quality entertainment. He’s also an honest-to-goodness super robot pilot, or at least he becomes one when he teams up with a shouting swordsman.
…
You don’t know super robot anime until you’ve known Gurren Lagann. Not in the biblical sense of the term of course (though one bathing scene comes awfully close), but in the sense that until you’ve seen Gurren Lagann, you haven’t seen super robot-targeted entertainment taken to its logical extreme. There is nothing, not one scene, line of dialogue, image or plot development in the series that isn’t aimed with laser accuracy at the hardest of hardcore super robot fans. Ridiculous mecha types, fan-favorite genre tropes and cheesecake service shots are just the beginning, and crammed doesn’t even begin to describe the neutron-star density with which the series packs in the super robot obsessions.
…
Gurren Lagann is not without appeal—much of it is stirring and the mecha action is downright cool—it’s just that it’s hard to enjoy it amid the sunglass wearing robots, traffic jams of knowingly recycled plot developments (viva la sudden battlefield gattai!) and ponderous pacing. Had the series devoted a little more time to crafting likeable leads (as opposed to GAR archetypes) and less time to sating appetites for over the top, codified hotblooded manliness, or more time to Hiroishi’s oddball humor and less time to Nakashima’s thinly-disguised phallic fantasies, perhaps the series could have been the modern super robot classic it wants to be. As it stands it is more a monument to otaku tastes than a viable work of entertainment, and an oft-disturbing monument at that.
Overall (dub) : C-
Overall (sub) : C-
Story : D
Animation : B+
Art : B
Music : C
+ Idiosyncratic animation; some potent hotbloodedness.
− Overstuffed, otaku-pandering script and plodding final act; malignant genocidal overtones are a major heebie-jeebie factor.
Source:
http://scottd.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/ann-hates-nanoha/