#out of all the classic 90s animated comedy shows this one remains my favorite hands down (and honestly my favorite show period)

[sailor-arashi]

Anime suggestions?

Asking a 42 year old lifelong anime dork for anime suggestions!?

Sorry that it’s taken me a little bit to address this.  In the absence of specifics I decided to provide a recommendation of my old favorites as opposed to new releases.  Of course then I realized I could write entire essays on each of my old favorites as a recommendation and started thinking about how to make a post like that.  Then I decided to provide short recommendations for most of the old favorites and save the hard-sell for a single great freaking show.  This in turn led me to end up re-watching large parts of said show because it’s just that freaking great.   Also, if anyone reading this wants lengthy essays on why I love a certain series, ask away and I’ll write one up if I’m feeling productive one day!

Anyway!

If you’re looking for recently-aired stuff, you can go through my GIF tag to see what I’ve been watching for the past few seasons.  Chances are if I’m making GIFs of something I also recommend watching it.   The only recent show that I’d mention specifically as deserving more attention than it received is Made In Abyss.  It’s a great little show.  It’s also really dark, despite the cutesy character designs, so don’t be fooled.  Also, if body horror is a trigger, stay the fuck away.  The Abyss does bad bad things to people.   Anyway, on to the old stuff ;)

Macross SeriesMacross is my all-time favorite ongoing setting.  It’s one of the great pillars of the Real Robot genre.  It’s stands apart from its peers by focusing more on the human side of conflicts, having an actual nuanced take on the role of the military, and just being very hopeful in general.    There are several separate series that I recommend, thus I am grouping them together.

The Super-Dimension Fortress Macross (1982):  The original.  A true classic of anime.  The animation is terribly dated at this point, but the story still holds up.  Every time I remember that I first watched this within a year or two of it airing, I feel really old.

Do You Remember Love? (1984):  A stunningly-animated movie version of the TV series.  The story is slightly different, but close enough if you don’t want to put in the time to watch the TV series but want a better frame of reference on the sequels.  It’s also one of the most technically impressive hand-animated movies put to film, so it’s worth a look.

Macross Plus (1994):  Four episode OVA series set 30 years after the original.  The focus is on the reunion of three former friends rather than the overarching events of the setting, so it can easily be watched without knowing anything about Macross.  It’s also widely regarded as one of the best OVA series ever made.  It launched the career of Yoko Kanno, among others.

Macross Frontier (2007):  Takes place 47 years after the original on board one of Earth’s many outbound colony fleets.  Like Macross Plus, the cast is original to the series, and the first 8 or so episodes begin with summaries of the history of the Macross setting, so it can be watched without watching the others…though you’ll miss a lot of references and a bit of the story nuance, but not enough to be unenjoyable. 

Moving on from Macross!

Azumanga Daioh (2002):  The original slice-of-life show.   Cute girls doing cute things.  You will cry when they graduate.  Watch it.

Nadia of the Mysterious Seas (1990):  High adventure in the 1800s!  Very very loosely based on 2000 Leagues Under The Sea.  This is the series that put Gainax on the map.  It also has one of my favorite openings ever.

Aim For the Top!  Gunbuster! (1988):  While we’re talking about the glories of 80s-90s Gainax, let’s drop in on Gunbuster.  A surprisingly-deep take on the Super Robot genre, featuring the most hot-blooded female pilots you’ll find anywhere, which is a huge selling point.   If you ever wonder why Evangelion took off so quickly, it’s because it was sold to us as a TV series “by the people who did Gunbuster!”   

Marmalade Boy (1994):  For years this was my ‘warm blanket and dark chocolate’ anime.  Whenever I was feeling down for reasons hormonal or otherwise I’d just start watching randomly from one of the 76 episodes.  It’s just an animated soap opera.  The main character, Miki, is stunned when her parents come back from a vacation and announce that they’re swapping partners with a couple they met in Hawaii.  They all move into the same house together, and Miki meets the other couple’s son Yuu.  Hijinks ensue.  Nearly every episode ends on a cliffhanger or stunning revelation.  It oozes melodrama from every frame of animation.

EDIT:  I just walked out into the living room and told the wife what I was doing and mentioned that I recommended Marmalade Boy.  Her response:  “RUN MIKI!  RUN FROM YOUR PROBLEMS!” and now I can’t stop laughing, because that’s exactly Miki’s response to everything bad that happens to her.

(I appear to be drifting closer to writing essays for them all, I’ll just add a couple more and move on)

Yamato 2199 (2012):  A bit of a cheat, as this is fairly recent, but it’s a direct remake of the original 1970′s series that I watched as a kid…and it’s frankly better than the original.  

Please Save My Earth (1993):  Six-episode OVA series that covers the first half of the manga series by the same name.  A girl named Alice begins having dreams of living in a hidden base on the moon.  She encounters several other people who are dreaming the same thing.  I used to hate one of the characters for what he did.  Then I understood but still couldn’t forgive it.  Finally, now, I think I can forgive him.  It’s a series that makes you feel very strongly, but to explain is to spoil.  One of Yoko Kanno’s first series as a composer.

His and Her Circumstances (1998):   A romance buds between two people who hide their true selves behind a mask of normalcy.  Will they still like each other once those masks are stripped away?  A compelling romantic comedy from Gainax, and also one of the codifiers of the Gainax Ending, so the show kinda goes to shit in the second half, with three recap episodes and the animation devolving into stick figures, but the main plot is resolved long before then and despite all of this it remains a truly incredible series.

Okay, so, now we come to it.  The hard sell.

If there is anything at all in this post that you watch, you absolutely MUST WATCH

GIANT ROBO:  THE ANIMATIONThe Day The Earth Stood Still (1992)

I cannot possibly summarize the plot better than its own intro, so watch this:

The entire show is like that!  Breathless exposition!  Dashing heroics!  Fearful villainy!  And the entire thing done in a retro-60′s design aesthetic as an homage to the original creator of all the characters within, Mitsuteru Yokoyama.  Top it off with a literally operatic soundtrack and you have the recipe for…well…maybe that’s hard to say?  Why am I recommending a series about a kid who controls a giant robotic pharaoh? 

The show looks absolutely ludicrous, and in many ways it is.  The characters are over the top in a very old-school sort of way.  You’ve got your obvious good guys, literally called the EXPERTS OF JUSTICE.  You’ve got your obvious bad guys who constantly pledge themselves to the service of a guy named BIG FIRE.  The heroes protect the new utopia that the world has become with the invention of a perfect power source.  The bad guys seek to destroy that utopia and crush humanity beneath their heel.  It’s all so cut-and-dry.  Even the characterization of some of the villains as “noble monsters” and some of the heroes as “ends justifies the means” loose cannons doesn’t really give it much depth.

At first.

The show very quickly disabuses you of that notion as it delves into what it actually took to carve out a utopian existence from a humanity that is so frequently opposed to any such thing.  It examines the motivations of the villains and finds them valid.  It examines the motivations of the heroes and finds them wanting.  It provides two questions that drive the emotional arc of the story and demands that the characters, and you the viewer, answer them.

Can happiness be achieved without sacrifice?

Can a new era be reached without misfortune?

As the sins of the past rise up to destroy the hope of the future, somehow the giant robot pharaoh stops seeming so ridiculous.  The fact that everything looks like 1960′s guy-in-monster-suit action cinema only serves to contrast the actual depth of the characters and the series as a whole.  To say more is to spoil, so I’ll not go into detailed analysis.  Suffice it to say:  The show looks silly, yet is really quite serious.

It also has one of the best finales of all time.  I watched this series as it was released, and there was a three year wait between episode six and episode seven, and I can honestly say it was worth every second.  Re-watching it just a few hours ago, my cheeks were wet with tears and stretched in a big grin at the same time.  It’s probably the most satisfying end to a series I’ve seen. 

So, there you have it.  A whole bunch of old anime to watch.  (WATCH GIANT ROBO)

If anyone reading this actually watches something based on my recommendation and enjoys it, please let me know.  It’s always great to hear that a recommendation was well-received.

[alecthemovieguy]

Merry Subversive Christmas: Quirky songs to get you through the holidays

Over the years, I’ve gathered quite a collection of off-beat, dark or subversive Christmas songs. These songs are the alternatives to the familiar ones saturating the airwaves, so if you’re looking for something different, these might do the trick.

“Cool Yule” — Tony Rodelle Larson (1962)

This is often mislabeled as being performed by William Shatner. It is easy to understand the confusion as Larson’s broken speech patterns do indeed bring to mind Shatner’s riffs on such songs as “Rocket Man.” This beatnik take on “Twas Night the Night Before Christmas” is most definitely way out.

“Monster’s Holiday” — Bobby “Boris” Pickett (1962)

After the “Monster Mash” became a hit this quickie sequel was churned out. There are some amusing riffs on holiday classics, but it is mostly a shameless rewrite of the original. It was a minor hit, but didn’t remain a holiday classic.

“Silver Bells” — Paul Simon and Steve Martin (Sometime in the late 1970s)

This rare show rehearsal starts out simple enough with Simon doing a lovely version of this classic song, but soon Simon’s singing becomes mere backdrop for Martin deadpanning through a cynical monologue on the true meaning of Christmas that ranges from goofy to racy.

“Father Christmas” — The Kinks (1977)

Leave it to The Kinks, the same band that sang about an encounter with the transvestite “Lola,” to write a song about mugging Santa. Ray Davies’ sunny delivery masks the nastiness in lyrics such as “Father Christmas, give us some money/Don’t mess around with those silly toys/Well beat you up if you don’t hand it over.”

“Christmas in the Stars” (from the “Star Wars” Christmas album of the same name) (1980)

Strange and frightening things began to happen after the tremendous success of the original “Star Wars,” including an astoundingly awful 1978 holiday special. Lessons weren’t learned and two years later producer Meco — hot off his successful disco version of the “Star Wars” theme — produced a Christmas album from a galaxy far, far away. “Christmas in the Stars” is so bad as to become campy fun.

“There Ain’t No Sanity Clause” — The Damned (1980)

English punk band The Damned released this song just in time for the holiday season, but it failed to chart perhaps because no one wanted to have the Santa Claus bubble popped for the youngest yuletide revelers. The lyrics are barely intelligible, but, it is the sing-a-long anthem-like chorus that brings this one home.

"Bollocks To Christmas" — The Business (1981)

English punk bands must have had it out for Christmas in the early ’80s. Elton John's 1973 holiday classic "Step Into Christmas" gets rewritten and reworked into rollicking anti-Christmas anthem that is a welcome antidote for those overdosing on Christmas cheer.

“Christmas in Heaven” — Monty Python (1983)

Monty Python were always known for loopy songs that often pointed out the hypocrisies or the idiosyncrasies of society. In the film “The Meaning of Life,” Graham Chapman sings a caustic song about the consumerism and commercialism that runs rampant during the holiday season that includes lyrics like: “There’s great films on TV/"The Sound of Music” twice an hour/And ‘Jaws’ one, two, and three.“

"Christmas at Ground Zero” - “Weird Al” Yankovic (1986)

Weird Al’s song parodies are usually goofy and innocuous, but Al also has a macabre and twisted sense of humor that occasionally shines through. Written in 1986, “Christmas at Ground Zero” is a biting satire on Cold War paranoia filtered through the sound of a festive holiday tune. Are lines like: “It’s Christmas at ground zero/There’s panic in the crowd/We can dodge debris while we trim the tree/Underneath the mushroom cloud” riotously funny, or simply in bad taste? You be the judge.

“Christmas In Hollis” — Run DMC (1987)

This is a happy hip hop holiday song about Christmas in Queens, N.Y. The song includes such endearingly goofy lyrics as “It was December 24th on Hollis Ave in the dark/When I seen a man chilling with his dog in the park/I approached very slowly with my heart full of fear/Looked at his dog, oh my God, an ill reindeer.”

“Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight)” — The Ramones (1989)

The Ramones were still kicking around in the late 1980s cranking out three-chord ditties. Surprisingly, one of the best songs from this era is a Christmas song about the tensions of the season and the need for forgiveness.

“Santa Song” — Adam Sandler (1993)

Everyone is familiar with Sandler’s “Chanukah Song,” but he actually did a Christmas themed song that pre-dates its by a year. In this one Sandler sings about all the reasons he won’t be getting a visit from Santa. Best line: “Santa don’t like bad boys…especially Jewish ones.”

“12 Days of Yaksmas” — Ren and Stimpy (1993)

There have been numerous parodies of the “12 Days of Christmas,” which is your favorite really comes down to personal preference. As a youth in the 1990s, I’ll always have a special place in my heart for the warped antics of this dog and cat team.

“Burger/Christmas Medley” — Phil Hartman and Sinbad (1995)

Hidden in the closing credits of the film “Houseguest,” a largely forgettable comedy that lives on as cable TV filler, this is an amusing medley of barbecue-themed Christmas songs. Hartman even reprises some of his most famous “Saturday Night Live” impressions, including Frank Sinatra and Bill Clinton.

“Little Drum Machine Boy” — Beck (1996)

“The Little Drummer Boy” gets morphed into an odd dance and rap flavored Chanukah anthem featuring “the holiday Chanukah robot of funk.” Beck is a chameleon-like musician who blends different genres with amazing skill. It is hardly traditional, but certainly original and memorable.

“The Night Santa Went Crazy” — Weird Al Yankovic (1996)

Don’t be fooled by the sweet guitar strumming of the open, this Christmas carol turns humorously sour fast. Yankovic turns his twisted mind on Christmas in the story of the night Santa finally snapped and became a “big, fat, disgruntled yuletide Rambo.”

“I Won’t Be Home for Christmas” — Blink 182 (1997)

Goofball pop/punk rockers wrote this anthem for all those who are driven up the wall by the holiday season. The song features bitter, but funny lyrics like: “It’s time to be nice to the people you can’t stand all year/I’m growing tired of all this Christmas cheer.”

“I Want an Alien for Christmas” — Fountains of Wayne (1997)

Years before Fountains of Wayne recorded its breakup out “Stacy’s Mom,” the band recorded this cheerfully loopy song that seems to be a modern riff on “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.” It is hard not to smile at such lyrics as “I want a little green guy/About three feet high/With seventeen eyes.”

“O Holy Night” — Eric Cartman (1999)

“South Park” dedicated a whole episode to satirizing holiday music back in 1999. This is one of the tamer songs from the episode with the spoiled Cartman butchering the holiday classic to hilarious effect.

“Lonely Christmas Eve” - Ben Folds (2000)

Faith Hill’s “Where Are You, Christmas?” got all the attention, but this song is probably the best thing to come out of Ron Howard’s bloated film version of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” Written from the perspective of the Grinch, the tongue-in-cheek piano-man perfectly captures the Dr Seuss tone in a way the movie it appeared in never did while also adding his own quirky sense of humor.

“Bizarre Christmas Incident” — Ben Folds (2002)

Folds hasn’t done a Christmas album, but based on this and the above song, it would be one of the funniest ones ever recorded. This aptly named song unfolds a dark tale of a man encountering Santa in the night. The song answer the question of what would happen if Santa got stuck in the chimney. Needless to say, it doesn’t end pretty. Best enjoyed by those who like their humor black.

“Jingle Bells” - Brian Setzer Orchestra (2002) Setzer reinterprets “Jingle Bells” with his familiar swinging rockabilly stamp. It is a hoot to hear him change the “one horse open sleigh” to a “57 Chevrolet.”

“Elf’s Lament” — Barenaked Ladies (2004)

On “Barenaked for the Holidays” the Ladies presented a collection of Christmas favorite as well as original songs featuring their quirky sense of humor. On this song an elf complains “I make toys, but I’ve got aspirations.”  Bonus: this song features vocals from Michael Bublé.

“Mr. Heat Miser” — Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (2004)

The song first appeared in the 1974 stop-motion animation special “The Year Without Santa.” Thirty years later the swing revival group Big Bad Voodoo Daddy recorded the definitive version of the song for their holiday album “Everything You Want for Christmas.”

“Christmastime for the Jews” — Darlene Love (2005)

Robert Smigel contributed a series of animated shorts to “Saturday Night Live” called “TV Funhouse.” This was one of the best with soul singer Love providing the vocals to a song that describes what Jews do while gentiles “stay at home and party with their goyish family.”

“Dick in a Box” - Lonely Island and Justin Timberlake (2006)

When it first aired on “Saturday Night Live” Dec. 16, 2006, it was clear it would become an instant classic. A parody of ‘90s R&B was an ideal fit for Timberlake, but when you got to the punchline, it was the last thing you expected.

“I’m Getting Nuttin’ for Christmas” — Relient K (2007)

Christian punk/pop band Relient K’s do a fast, rocking cover of the novelty song “I’m Getting Nuttin’ for Christmas.” The snarling punk attitude and crunching guitars suit lyrics like “I broke my bat on Johnny’s head/Somebody snitched on me” quite well.

“Another Christmas Song” — Stephen Colbert (2008)

Stephen Colbert did a hilarious parody of holiday specials in 2008. The special’s songs either subverted preexisting songs or, in this case, are something completely new. Lyrics like “The tree is frozen, the winter’s bright/Who’d have thought the wise men look so white” are made all the funnier by Colbert’s authentic crooning.

“Present Face” — Garfunkel and Oates (2008)

This female comedy-folk duo combines disarming charming and simple hooks with goofy and/or raunchy lyrics. In this case the duo leans toward the silly side as they sing about the all too familiar face people make when they get a present they don’t like.

“Christmas Tree” — Lady Gaga featuring Space Cowboy (2008)

Leave it to Lady Gaga, the reigning pop queen of weirdness, to co-write a Christmas song filled with dance beats and dripping with sexual innuendos. It is most definitely not family friendly, but the audacity is admirable.

“Merry Something to You” — Devo (2009)

Yep, Devo, those quirky new wavers recorded a song for the holidays. Blending cheery, generic holiday music with the synthesizers and drum beats they are known for, the band creates an infectious little ditty. Devo often used their songs to satirize society and that’s most definitely the case here as they proclaim: “Believe what you want nothing’s really true.”

“Oh Shit, It’s Christmastime!” — Mad Tea Party (2009)

This uke-abilly band vents their frustration for Christmas in this infectious two-minute ditty. The cynical lyrics include sentiments that anyone can relate to, if only fleetingly: “It’s Christmas, forgot about the pagans and Jews/It’s Christmas and it makes me blue.”

“Christmas Night of the Living Dead” — MxPx (2009)

It was perhaps inevitable that there would be a zombie-themed Christmas song. Punk rockers MxPx present this bloody tale of Christmas carnage featuring the chorus: “Christmas night of the living dead/My face is green and the snow is red.”

“I Wish It Was Christmas Today” — Julian Casablancas (2009)

Originally a goofy tune performed on “Saturday Night Live” by Horatio Sanz, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan and Tracy Morgan, Casablancas, the lead singer of The Strokes, fleshes it out into a full-fledged rocking Christmas song. The added production value manages to enhance the simple charms of the skit rather than undermine it.

“All I Need Is Love” —  CeeLo Green Feat. The Muppets (2012)

The Muppet’s classic “Mahna Mahna” becomes the spine for this joyous collaboration with CeeLo Green, in which Green proclaims all he needs is love for Christmas. Slick modern pop production combined with the silliness of the Muppets make this hard to resist.

"The Season's Upon Us" — Dropkick Murphys (2012)

Boston’s beloved Celtic punk band offers up their take on the holiday season. The song gleefully embraces familial dysfunction and chaos with such  lyrics like “My sisters are wack jobs, I wish I had none/Their husbands are losers and so are their sons.” 

“I Fucking Love Christmas” — Rob Scallon and Doug Walker (2014)

Doug Walker has been providing irreverent movie reviews on the Internet as the Nostalgic Critic since 2007. He loves Christmas. He really loves Christmas, which he makes abundantly clear in this gloriously over-the-top song. The hilariously explicit lyrics definitely require parental discretion.

“Sump’n Claus” — Kenan Thompson (2014)

“Saturday Night Live” delivers again with yet another hilarious satire of Christmas. Here Kenan Thompson plays Sump’n Claus, who, unlike Santa Claus and his judgmental list, declares “everybody’s gettin’ sump’n” and that something is cold hard cash in a white envelope. Just don’t ask where it came from.

“Text Me Merry Christmas” — Straight No Chaser and Kristen Bell (2014)

A cappella group Straight No Chaser is joined by actress Bell for a perfect mix of sincerity and satire in looking at love and the holiday season in the modern age. Playful lyrics like “I don’t care if you spell things right/I just want to hear from you tonight/Stroke those keys with your delicate touch/And type those little words that mean so much” are delivered with a charming sweetness.

“Santa’s Coming For Us” — Sia (2017)

Every year, a new crop of artists release Christmas-themed albums. Typically, they are filled with covers of the same holiday standards with a couple originals thrown. Refreshingly, Sia’s “Everyday is Christmas” features all new songs that perfectly blend Sia’s idiosyncratic pop sensibilities with the upbeat sounds of the season. Lead single “Santa’s Coming For Us” is effervescent and catchy in way that never becomes insufferable.