AnimeFansFTW.com

Manhwa Gets No Love?

2010-06-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

Before I get into the topic of this post, I want to talk about manga for people who have no idea as to what is it. Manga consists of comic books, which most anime are adapted from. Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece have manga that are more close to the storyline than their anime, as sometimes anime series tend to have spin-offs. So right now their manga adaptations are much further in the storyline than anime. That's the gist of it.

I know I'm not the only one who's pissed that manhwa like Veritas doesn't have an anime yet. Some of you probably don't even know what manhwa is. Well it's basically Korean manga, but it kicks just as much ass as its Japanese counterpart. I mentioned Veritas for a reason, because it's probably the most popular manhwa out there. Then again, I'm not looking at statistics or anything so I could be completely wrong. Most manga readers that I encounter have heard about Veritas so it seems appropriate. Now I'm seriously wondering, why is there no manhwa anime?

Now if you googled "manhwa anime" just now or even before you've read this sentence, you're cheating. There is a manga called Shin Angyo Onshi (Blade of the Phantom Master) which is written and illustrated by Korean artists, but it was published in Japan so it's considered to be manga. It does have an anime movie and it's pretty good. The art, plot, and theme are all worth checking out. I can't say that I know all about manhwa but I've encountered three that have piqued my interest. Veritas, Jack Frost, and The Breaker are manhwa that definitely deserve some recognition. Of course, I love action and all three of those manhwa provide a large amount of it.

Everything has a flaw, and manhwa has at least one in my opinion. The names of characters are annoying. They're obviously Korean names and I have no problem with that, but when almost every name sounds almost the same it can get really confusing. I usually have to read a manhwa and not care about the name of most characters because they might sound similar to another name which will eventually get me confused. I probably wouldn't care if I actually knew the pronunciation of these names, but without anime or some form of animation to go with it I have nothing that I can use to actually know how to say them.

I can't say that all manhwa don't have an anime series. Some probably do, but not much. One reason could be because most of them aren't really popularized outside of Japan. As manga's popularity grows internationally, manhwa will probably do the same. Hopefully it'll be soon, because I want to see Gangryong punch someone through a wall in high definition.

Why Ryohgo Narita gives me a hard on

2010-05-28T21:19:00.000-07:00

And I know you're all like, who the **** is Ryohgo Narita? Well the link should help you out since I'm too lazy to explain how awesome he is even though he totally deserves me making a full, all out biography. I'm more excited about his mind rather than the man. It's the same reason why Shinchiro Watanabe gives me a hard on. They both have created great stories that make the anime world go holy s***. Watanabe did it with Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. I mean if you haven't watched these already, why are you reading this and not watching them right now?

Narita didn't create his stories for anime though. He writes light novels so I don't think he expected his works to become great anime. He created Baccano! as a light novel and won a Japanese novel award for it. It became an anime series later on, instantly becoming one of my favorites. Durarara!!, aka DRRR!!, is also one of his light novel series that became an anime. I'm not going to spoil much, but yeah if you don't watch them you're heavily missing out no matter how weird the first episode is.

Comedy, no more?

2010-05-11T12:30:00.000-07:00

I've witnessed over the seasons what seems to be a slow decrease in comedy anime. Not just the usual comedy that comes with certain genres of anime, but actual comedy anime, much like Ouran High School Host Club or Seto no Hanayome. What happened to good old "ecchi-less" comedy? I like to be able to watch a good anime that will make me enjoy a good laugh without having to worry about what peers might think if they walked in on me. I have absolutely nothing against ecchi anime but when it replaces one of my favorite genres well it bothers me. Makes you wonder "are the japanese really that perverted?" Sure 'oppai', 'pantsu', 'mizugi' etc are all nice to watch but they get old after a while. Its almost as though you already know what's going to happen and even expect it. The repetitiveness of events and mishaps in anime are all short of creativity and innovation.

There are still some good shows which did well in recent seasons, one of them being Nyan Koi! and even though this one had its share of anime cliches such as the well known 'nekomimi' and a bit of 'tsundere' it was still quite hilarious and enjoyable. My whole point is, it is ok to use these as means to get people's attention, but don't make them the main focus, there is always room for creativity.

Oh boy, or wait, is he a man?

2010-05-01T23:41:00.000-07:00

I seriously don’t think I’m the only one who notices this, but what the hell is up with all these young protagonists that look like they’re in their 20s? Now I rarely see a 16 year old look as though they could drink beer with the big boys, but in anime they’re pretty abundant. Not all anime series seem to have this pattern. HunterxHunter for example, which is kind of an old anime that has a current manga series running in Weekly Shonen Jump, has a protagonist named Gon, not the dragon dinosaur thing from Tekken 3, who is 12 years old and looks 12 years old. Now another crazy thing is that this kid, like Goku in Dragonball, is able to just demolish people in fights as though they’ve never fought before, but that’s not what I’m talking about. HunterxHunter is a shonen manga which is targeted to young boys so it makes sense if a kid who hasn’t reached puberty could kick ass.

Now back to the matter at hand, Bleach’s protagonist Ichigo is 16, but IMO he could pass for 18. Yusuke Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakusho was 14 at the start of the series, but even then I think he could’ve passed for 18. Kuwabara could’ve been seen as 21 or older. There are many examples out there of how appearance doesn’t exactly match the age, especially with females. I mean seriously, the 14 year olds would have boobs as big as basketballs. Is this a problem? Not really, especially if the anime is good. I just find it a bit weird. I don’t know if Japanese people look older than their age so I can’t criticize much, but should anime characters be somewhat consistent with their age?

The Classics: Hokuto no Ken

2010-04-02T20:54:00.000-07:00

Hokuto no Ken, AKA Fist of the North Star is insanely awesome. It is a classic anime series that's about some martial arts prodigy named Kenshiro who knows a secret martial art in an apocalyptic setting. Now what amazes me is not the story, art, or voice acting, but it's the ridiculous techniques that Kenshiro and his opponents use. Now if you watched a lot of martial arts flicks or read some fiction on the topic, you may have come across techniques involving someone just using one finger to kill another person. That's exactly what Kenshiro can do and even more. It seems that he has endless amounts of ways to not only kill you, but turn you into dust. His attacks mainly cause you to explode internally, making your body blow up like a balloon until you burst.

Kenshiro is basically Bruce Lee on steroids, seriously. He even has a modified version of his famous yell. But anyway, what Hokuto no Ken showed me was that the classics are still win even if they are outdated. That's common sense though isn't it? I mean there are classic games that are better than new ones. I'll be looking out for some good classic anime to upload to the site, especially Hokuto no Ken. So, what anime classics do you like?

Pokemanz anyone?

2010-03-25T22:14:00.000-07:00

What in the hell is it that draws people to Pokemon? I myself enjoy the series from time to time, but it has got to be the most repetitive anime series I've ever seen. Ash loses like almost every time I see him in a tournament or in a gym battle, but almost always wins the second time. S*** gets boring after a while. Whether it's Misty, May, or Dawn, the female protagonist is almost always the same, except for Misty since she actually seemed to have a different personality. Brock has been through almost all of Ash's battles. If I remember correctly he was replaced by Tracey for a while, but it seems that he failed so badly that they had to get Brock back. Brock isn't bad to be honest. I actually prefer him over anyone else because his pokemon are interesting. He has a f***ing poisonous frog that knows how to fight. That's as win as the Ninja Turtles.

Another annoying thing is Ash's rivals. Why have a rival if they always kick your ass? Seriously, Gary would destroy him left and right. I don't even think Ash ever beat him, but then again its Gary Motherf***ing Oak. There's some guy named Paul in the Diamond and Pearl part of the series who rapes him in seconds. Now tell me this, how in the hell do you train in all 3 other islands and get your ass beat in the 4th so badly? I know, he has brand new pokemon, but seriously? By now he should know to at least think before he battles. I could go all day about how Pikachu truly sucks as a pokemon but I'll save that for another day.

The moral of this rant for now is, please please please stop getting your ass handed to you.

The Other Guy...

2010-03-12T22:21:00.001-08:00

Hi there, Ryuga here. I am the head admin and owner of AFFTW and I'll be helping Shoku out with this new rants idea. I personally believe this is a great idea for our blog's development and to be honest I'm sure I'll enjoy ranting about all sorts of things related to anime and reading our followers' comments on our rants. We hope to start our first rant really soon so please do look forward to it, it will certainly be something to behold. In regards to the anime reviews idea, it isn't dropped, just delayed. We hope our rants will be fun for you guys and we look forward to writing for you all.

New Blog Idea: Anime Rants

2010-03-12T21:00:00.001-08:00

This is Shoku again and it has been awhile since I've been able to make a blog post. The only one I've made is the intro post for our anime reviews which are what I haven't been able to do. The idea was to create a concrete review with the best of my abilities, but my education has become harder in the last couple of months which hasn't allowed me to write any. So in order to make constant blog posts, I've thought of creating anime rants. These rants consist of things that may float around my mind when I think of anime. I believe this is more appropriate for a blog anyway. We at AFFTW have been thinking of creating a site just for reviews at some point so we'll just wait for that to open up. I won't be the only one making these rants as some other moderators on the site as well as some members may also write their own rants for anyone else to comment on. I won't release much more info on this subject, so I'll just let my writing and rants do the talking.

AnimeFansFTW.com's Anime Reviews

2009-12-29T19:12:00.001-08:00

Hello people. This is Shoku, one of the Administrators of AnimeFansFTW.com. We've been thinking that in order to truly say that we're anime fans, we should tell people about the anime that we ourselves and most people enjoy. So in order to do that, we have decided to create a blog so that we can review and rate the multitude of anime that are out there. We will mostly review anime that we have on our own site so readers can watch what we're talking about. We'll attempt to review the good and the bad by giving our own summary of the anime, explaining the details of some main characters, rating the anime with a 1 to 5 rating system, comparing the anime with the manga of the same series, and including short rants about our favorite characters of the particular series. So if you've been wondering which anime you should watch or stay away from, follow us to get a full review of the best and worst.