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(Relatively) obscure anime you think deserve more attention!

mothematics

mothematics

How wide is the concept of "you"?
Location
the bottom of a coffee cup
Pronouns
She/Her
As per the title! Gimmie it all! OVAs, short films, full series! Don't post any shit like Naruto or Little Witch Academia, I mean stuff that's not actually that talked about.

For my money I've been watching (I think it's pretty obscure-ish? Maybe I'm completely wrong lol) Samurai Flamenco with @Sightedjt and to call it a headtrip is too mild. The basic premise is that it's a Kick-Ass-esque riff on Japanese super sentai shows. I'm not a fan of them and I've never been, beyond liking their American counterparts as a kid in Power Rangers, but now that I'm nearly done with it I can safely say that it's managed to throw me for more loops than I ever thought possible and I love it to bits. But that may be a little too mainstream, so let's go with...

Doukyuusei!

It's a short film that came out last year about two gay nerds in high school. It's adorable. They sing and study together. There's drama and laughter and I don't really want to say more, but it made me cry, and I think it's a little gem, and I watch it maybe once a month because it's so beautiful in every regard. Would rec to anyone interested in gay nerds with a side of INTENSE EMOTIONS but also plenty of cutes and laughter.

I have a bunch more I'll post about whenever I feel like it (I am a massive weeb and watch too much anime) but for now:

Post yours, SV!
 
NODAME CANTABILE



PEOPLE NEED TO WATCH THIS SHOW ASAP

BEST ROMANCE ANIME, BEST MUSIC ANIME

Okay tbf there's some great examples of both genres out there, but Nodame Cantabile ignited my fiery passion for classical music like nothing else. It's made me weep tears alone in my room because I recognise the passion of the musician in its scenes in ways I rarely see anymore. Or at all. And it's cute and funny to boot.

And yet people generally go "Huh, that's a thing?" whenever I mention it.

Except @Rook, but I expect her to know everything related to music anyway :V
 
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Fernandel said:
NODAME CANTABILE



PEOPLE NEED TO WATCH THIS SHOW ASAP

BEST ROMANCE ANIME, BEST MUSIC ANIME

Okay tbf there's some great examples of both genres out there, but Nodame Cantabile ignited my fiery passion for classical music like nothing else. It's made me weep tears alone in my room because I recognise the passion of the musician in its scenes in ways I rarely see anymore. Or at all. And it's cute and funny to boot.

And yet people generally go "Huh, that's a thing?" whenever I mention it.

Except @Rook, but I expect her to know everything related to music anyway :V
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>completely changing tempo from dress with literally no warning because it feels right

You'd be surprised how much this happens tbh.
 
Rook said:
>completely changing tempo from dress with literally no warning because it feels right

You'd be surprised how much this happens tbh.
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My bandleader once started counting in this hugely complicated stagebreaker jazz piece twice as fast as he usually did in practice.

The man's shit-eating grin when it dawned on our faces that he was serious about his tempo had to be seen to be believed.

EDIT: SINCE WE'RE ALREADY ON MUSIC ANIME THAT APPARENTLY NOBODY HAS WATCHED

Y'all need Sakamichi No Apollon in your life. Charles Mingus and "My Favourite Things" have never worked better together. The music is great, the conflicts are believable, and the heartache is real.

Oh, and it's Shinichiro Watanabe's newest project, so nobody here has any excuse to not have watched it.

 
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C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

I would spend an inordinate time making dumb jokes about how this anime is cash money but real talk it's wrong about economics and I don't want people to get the wrong intimation of my views from the endorsement so instead I only made one joke you may thank me for my kind restraint.

Part of why I really like it is that as a show it doesn't make a lot of the small compromises that quick, 11-to-13-and-done shows like it often do; it acknowledges and faces unpleasant or horrifying implicit consequences of its setting rather than deflect your attention from them, it doesn't push its message at the expense of or through crushing the dignity of its characters, nor does it contort or compromise its plot to accommodate that message (indeed it's so deeply and effectively communicated that despite the fact that I 3000% disagree with it I still think of the show fondly and genuinely urge everybody who reads this including @Rook to watch it) and also it is genuinely pretty and solidly animated. All in all [C] is an entertaining, self-contained eleven episode show that starts jaunty and smoothly escalates to a strong payoff, you can get it dubbed or subbed, it's great it's great hit it up.
 
Okay, so for something short, completely mediocre and an utterly wasted half an hour, there's Sentou Yousei Shoujo Tasukete! Maeve-chan/Rescue Me Maeve-chan. Why? Because it's a shit spinoff of Yukikaze, I watched it not knowing what I was going into, and getting my homoerotic psychological fighter action replaced with a half hour of this shit makes me want to make others suffer though it as well.

On an actually good note, Dai-Guard is and will always be the best Giant Robot Monster of the Week/Office Drama series, and will never be discussed enough even though it finally got a reprint on DVD a few years ago.
Here's the ED. It's legitimately a unique take on an ending for the genre it's nominally in, and probably one of the better measures of the series.


Blue Submarine No.6 is legitimately my favorite thing Gonzo ever did (yes, even more than Last Exile) even if the integration between CGI and traditional animation in it can be really janky at times. But it's a post apocalyptic drama in submarines with a great soundtrack.

Fuck it, I'll also include Rinne no Lagrange, because that's outside of FLCL and Cowboy Bebop the one show that isn't explicitly about music I've seen with the solidest musical identity. It was a Xebec production funded by the city of Kamogawa (seeking to get more tourism dollars) and Nissan. They basically blew the writing budget TOMISIRO instead (and actually got their money's worth, unlike Macross Delta,) and the remainder is basically just a mix of tourist trap life, giant robots and Erich von Däniken books. I mean five years after this ended I'm still listening to soundtrack from it.

I'll probably have more shit once I go through my old stuff, but TBH I don't watch that much in the way of super obscure stuff even if I am reading that fat elf diet manga.
 
shinaobi said:
C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

I would spend an inordinate time making dumb jokes about how this anime is cash money but real talk it's wrong about economics and I don't want people to get the wrong intimation of my views from the endorsement so instead I only made one joke you may thank me for my kind restraint.

Part of why I really like it is that as a show it doesn't make a lot of the small compromises that quick, 11-to-13-and-done shows like it often do; it acknowledges and faces unpleasant or horrifying implicit consequences of its setting rather than deflect your attention from them, it doesn't push its message at the expense of or through crushing the dignity of its characters, nor does it contort or compromise its plot to accommodate that message (indeed it's so deeply and effectively communicated that despite the fact that I 3000% disagree with it I still think of the show fondly and genuinely urge everybody who reads this including @Rook to watch it) and also it is genuinely pretty and solidly animated. All in all [C] is an entertaining, self-contained eleven episode show that starts jaunty and smoothly escalates to a strong payoff, you can get it dubbed or subbed, it's great it's great hit it up.
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MEZZOFLATION

Yeah it's by no means perfect but I found it engaging and definitely enjoyed it.
 
Bodacious Space Pirates.

It's about a teenage girl in the future who inherits a pirate ship, and legal space piracy licence, from her estranged father. Fun ensues .

Interesting detail about this anime. It features many scenes of school girls in zero g environments. The pirate captain and her class often operate ships in their school uniforms. But the anime shows surprising restraint. There is not one panty shot in the entire series.
 
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BunBun299 said:
Bodacious Space Pirates.

It's about a teenage girl in the future who inherits a pirate ship, and legal space piracy licence, from her estranged father. Fun ensues .

Interesting detail about this anime. It features many scenes of school girls in zero g environments. The pirate captain and her class often operate ships in their school uniforms. But the anime shows surprising restraint. There is not one panty shot in the entire series.
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There actually is one in the first episode. It's a blink and you'll miss it thing that is entirely realistic in context, but it's there. There are actually more open lesbians in the show than panty shots, and an equal number of turkey-shaped hats.

Also, have you ever wanted to watch yuri-bait Star Trek TOS but slower and about a part-time tourist attraction? Then Bodacious Space Pirates is the show for you.
 
NothingNow said:
There actually is one in the first episode. It's a blink and you'll miss it thing that is entirely realistic in context, but it's there. There are actually more open lesbians in the show than panty shots, and an equal number of turkey-shaped hats.

Also, have you ever wanted to watch yuri-bait Star Trek TOS but slower and about a part-time tourist attraction? Then Bodacious Space Pirates is the show for you.
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I must have blinked and missed it.
 
NothingNow said:
an equal number of turkey-shaped hats.
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This is somehow the funniest thing in your mention...


As to my rec...

Crest of the Stars (seasons 2 & 3, and 2 OVAs are titled Banner of the Stars) is a hard SF space opera with a slow burn relationship on top.
In the distant future, humanity is under attack by the Abh Empire, a race of advanced humanoid beings possessing vastly superior technology. As countless worlds fall to the Abh, mankind establishes the Four Nations Alliance—a resistance faction made up of the United Mankind, the Republic of Greater Alcont, the Federation of Hania, and the People's Sovereign of Union Planets.

But humanity is not the heroes here.

Seikai no Monshou tells the story of Jinto Linn. When he was young, his father—the president of Martine—sold their world in exchange for a high position in the empire. Now a young count, Jinto must learn the ways of Abh nobility and live among those who subjugated his people. Helping him is Lafiel Abriel, an austere Abh princess whom Jinto quickly befriends. While traveling to Jinto's new school in the Abh homeland, their ship is caught in a violent space battle between the fleets of the Alliance and the Abh. Jinto and Abriel are thrust into the conflict, unaware that this skirmish marks the beginning of a full-scale war between the Abh Empire and mankind.

(sorry for dropping the basic copy, but I'm incoherent with fatigue.)
 
Well @Rook and I have finished watching samflam, and I must say watching her suffering when the ride happened sustains me on a physical level. Still, now that we're through it, anything to share with the class?


As for contributions to the thread, I've got a pair of relatively lesser known shows. One good, the other... less so.

Ill start with the good- Mononoke. Coincidentally, also something I watched with Rook, shortly before I inflicted katanagatari upon her- thats also one I quite like but I'm not entirely sure if it counts as obscure enough for the thread. If it does let me recommend it to people as well. But that's beside the point.

Mononoke is a show featuring a series of short, self contained arcs featuring a humble medicine seller dealing with various supernatural incidents in mostly historic japan. It is very stylized, quite trippy, sorta mystery at points when the story of things are being figured out, and the interactions between the medicine seller and the rest of the cast are a good way of pushing things along. I would definitely recommend people watch it.


And now, the bad. Cross ange. An original one from sunrise from a couple years back, it doesnt have particularly much presence in general, for one real reason.

The reason is that it's shit. There is no other way I can describe the series. It's just shit.

The worldbuilding is stupid and makes no sense. The plot is contrived at the best of times and baffling at the worst. The characters are... some of them are decent, but its all fairly stereotyped and most of them are awful people. It has the return of fucking jesus yamato our lord and saviour. It's skeevy with impressively in your face fanservice scenes. This show has barely anything approaching a redeeming factor. This show is responsible for destroying a pair of my friends shoes. A character survives a blast from a suicide vest. HIS SUICIDE VEST THAT HE WAS WEARING AT THE TIME. It is a show that, by all rights, I should have hated.

The thing is? I didn't. It was shit, but for me, it managed to hit the sweet spot where it is entertaining because it is shit. Despite actively trying to not have fun watching it, I enjoyed it. So I think the show needs more attention for two reasons.

The first is that more people need to realize how shit it is, so they can have more examples of how not to do things. The second? If you have friends and you want to get drunk (I recommend drinking, as the time I inflicted this show on a friend I was drinking throughout, while he went from "no I'm not drinking" to "pass me the bottle Im too sober for this" over the course of the show) and watch a shitty anime whil suffering together, I can't think of a more entertaining worthless pile of trash to watch.
 
Strypgia said:
Oh come on, you've got to explain this...
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As I mentioned before, I was watching this show with a friend and by watching it I mean inflicting it upon them in a marathon. As I am a smart man and have seen the show before, I am drinking heavily, progressing from cider, to spirits mixed with stuff, to shots crap necked from the bottle, as both the show gets worse and I run out of lighter drink.

When I started drinking, my friend refused, saying he didn't feel like drinking and didn't want to get drunk. As the show went on and got worse, he changed his mind. Unfortunately for him, I had ran out of the lighter booze at this point, and he is kinda a lightweight. We continue to watch, suffer and drink, eventually just passing the bottle of shots crap back and forth and necking it because its all we had and we weren't drunk enough for this shit the show was pulling. Eventually, the show finishes, and we crash, both still fairly drunk.

Come the morning, I, being a perpetully cheery hangover free morning person, am up and about and all fine. My friend however is not. At some point during the night, he threw up. In his shoe. He, in his hungover befuddled mind, decided that the shoe must be cleaned. This was a good idea. Doing it while hungover, was not. Deciding that the best way of cleaning the shoes was to put them into the washing machine, was also a bad idea. The worst idea was when he did not turn down the temperature of the washing machine while doing so.

Needless to say, the glue in the shoes melted and they fell apart, and we saw him wearing slippers to uni for a while afterwards.

This is the same friend who, after forgetting his running shoes at his training centre and only noticing on the day he was taking part in one of the marathons, ran the marathon anyway while wearing his smart black shoes, so we're not unsurprised by him and shoes having a strange relationship.
 
Boy, I was going to say something about the female-led heroics in Crest of the Stars, but how can I beat that? :)

Well, here I go anyhow:

Something I like about CotS is fact the women get to be the heroes. Jinto is very much not a warrior. He's a civilian noble, doing his time in the Imperial Navy because that's required by his position as a Count's Heir. This is how he meets Ensign Lafiel, titularly already Viscountess of Paryunu, but that only because of her other name: Ablïarsec Néïc Dubleuscr Bœrh Parhynr Lamhirh, or more simply, Princess Lafiel ne Dobrusk Abriel, granddaughter of the reigning Empress.

Lafiel's father is in the line of succession, and so therefore is Lafiel herself. But the person she most tries to emulate is her mother, Captain Lexshue Plakia, an utterly fearless battleship captain. She's last seen taking her one battleship up against an ambush by 10 'human' heavy cruisers. She gets 9 of them.

That sets the bar for Lafiel, though. She's headstrong, fearless, and determined to live up to her family name. Jinto is always there to support her, but frequently is the one in the 'damsel in distress' role, and Lafiel has to save him. Their loyalty to each other is extremely strong and mutual: He literally takes a bullet for her, and she never lets anything stop her from coming to his rescue when he's in danger. But they're both also serving Naval officers, and when a time comes when she has to retreat her entire squadron before they're cut off, she has to leave him behind when he gets captured, though you can see doing so is killing her. Jinto sees the last shuttles leaving, and knows what's happening and why, and even tells Lafiel to her face when she does return to rescue him that she did her duty just like she's supposed to. Her relief that he's not dead breaks her composure, and for the first and only time she cries in public over him, something she's not 'allowed' to do as a member of the succession. (Their lives belong to the whole empire, they're not supposed to weep for mere personal reasons).

The relationship between them is slow, careful, but ultimately so dedicated and fierce that I utterly adore it. I heartily recommend it.
 
Kyousougiga
(The 2013 version. It can be most easily identified by it having 10 main episodes and three additional utterly skippable ones numbered 0, 5.5 and 10.5 to fit into the standard 13 episode schedule.)

Kyousougiga is a really chaotic story about a family and a city written by a person who seems to be disgusted at the idea of telling a story in a chronological fashion. Its pacing is also rapid and the series rarely bothers to actually explain stuff both about its crazy mixed Science Fiction/Mythology setting and about what is currently happening on the screen.

It is however absolutely gorgeous and its director did such an awesome job at all that framing stuff that even a cinematographic philistine like me can notice it. In additional there are tons of cute, awesome and emotional scenes provided you are capable of not letting all the the questions you will have distract you from the moment to moment quality.

That pretty much is why I love it so much. One rarely really knows why A leads to B, why that women lost her memories only to regain them five minutes later or why that Giant Robot was crucial for opening a path to some moon full of pretty flowers, but does that stuff really matter as long as A and B in isolation are wonderful?

Kyousogiga probably only works because it is so short, but it totally is something worth checking out.
 
NothingNow said:
On an actually good note, Dai-Guard is and will always be the best Giant Robot Monster of the Week/Office Drama series, and will never be discussed enough even though it finally got a reprint on DVD a few years ago.
Here's the ED. It's legitimately a unique take on an ending for the genre it's nominally in, and probably one of the better measures of the series.
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I love Dai-Guard, had the box set for ages :)
 
Well, Beet The Vandel Buster is a very good obscure MANGA. And it has an anime...but the anime is shit.

I can't really think of much anime that I like that is properly "obscure." Some are far more popular than others, but most of them have a decently large following. Probably the result of choosing which shows I watch based off of recommendations. If no one's heard of it, they can't rec it.
 
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Irresponsible Captain Tylor. Its an anime about this mysterious guy who joins with the United Planets Navy during a war with an alien empire. The main character is this easy going slacker who seems to win everything on pure luck. Its one of my favorite anime ever, and it really needs more attention I feel.
 
Joem20 said:
Irresponsible Captain Tylor. Its an anime about this mysterious guy who joins with the United Planets Navy during a war with an alien empire. The main character is this easy going slacker who seems to win everything on pure luck. Its one of my favorite anime ever, and it really needs more attention I feel.
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It's a comedy classic. It's a shame they never got to finish making the movies though.
 
BunBun299 said:
Bodacious Space Pirates.

It's about a teenage girl in the future who inherits a pirate ship, and legal space piracy licence, from her estranged father. Fun ensues .

Interesting detail about this anime. It features many scenes of school girls in zero g environments. The pirate captain and her class often operate ships in their school uniforms. But the anime shows surprising restraint. There is not one panty shot in the entire series.
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Actually been meaning to watch that at some point.
 
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