animation

[AlexB]

Jin Roh! I forgot about that one. Great movie, although the concept that the guys in gas masks and Panzegrenadier helmets with machine guns are actually the good guys, is a bit strange at first.

[Flangepart]

Good guys....yeah....i don;t know bout dat....
Freep : I must agree. Now that i think about it, we must miss alot of detail, when we don't know what to "Hear" for. A loss of Language subtelty.

[Andrew]

There are very few Japanese animation films that I can watch the English dub and enjoy the film.  "Spirited Away" and "Princess Mononoke" are two of them.  However, "Castle in the Sky" is one that I definitely have to watch in Japanese - the difference in the voice talent is enormous.

On the other hand, dubbing seems to add to the experience for kung fu flicks.

[dean]

>>>Oh and one more thing Ghost in the shell stand alone complex does not take place with the movies timeline. It completely separate from the movies. Hence Stand Alone Complex.<<<<

The main director in an interview said that this series takes place in a universe pretty much parrallell to the films, since the influence of the puppet master was too great, and they didn't want to lose the character of Major Kusanagi.  The Stand Alone Complex refers to something completely different, if you look at the first episode the text after the titles explains this.

Anyway, I pretty much highly reccommend every Anime included on this thread so far, with Ghost in the shell and its related media, Akira, Ninja Scroll, Evangelion, Hellsing Perfect Blue and Cowboy bebop are my favourites.

I also highly reccommend The Castle Of Cagliostro, if you know of the character Lupin, its part of that series.  I find it kinda silly [the good kind] but also really well done.

What is very interesting though is that I have seen two different dubbed versions of the film.

That is actually really confusing.  I taped it off tv once, and then watched the dvd and they were different!

One called the main character the wolf, the other Lupin.  Since its part of the Lupin series, I guess the dvd one, the lupin one is the proper one, though the fact that a different version exists is really quite odd.

I actually prefer the other version that was shown on TV, but I'm wondering, what happened to the version I know and love?  I just find it really odd, as I have stated many times already...

I guess the reason for it is that the 'official' one was kind of confusing; calling counterfiet money 'goat bills' instead of just saying counterfiet etc.  And calling him the wolf probably made it more approachable for people who weren't familiar with the original.

Also my opinion on dubbing vs subbing is: I usually watch Anime dubbed and Foriegn films Subbed. I find it a crime to watch a movie such as Police story or Crouching Tiger dubbed, because its just distracting me from the film, but dubbing in anime isn't a distraction, and like Freep said, you miss quite a bit when there is a lot of talking.  I noticed that especially in Ghost in the shell; there's so much to explain and so much talking that subtitles just can't keep up so they paraphrase.

Phew, that was a lot to write in so little time...

[peter johnson]

The original question was just about animation per se, and it turned into an all-Japanese/Anime thread.
Not that there's anything wrong with that . . .
Just to play the Western card here, try the French "Fantastic Planet" or the American/Fleischer Brothers' "Hoppity Goes to Town" or "Gulliver's Travels".
Even though Ralph Bakshi gets a lot of slams, I still think his "Heavy Traffic" is a fully-realized bit of animated art.
The older bits of true hand-drawn/hand-painted animation need to be watched and savored.  Even the overlooked Disney features like "Dumbo" need to be rewatched -- look at just the closeup on a bar of soap during the bathing sequence.  Many of the backgrounds were done by Walt "Pogo" Kelly on that one.  The guy could really draw!
And, oh, subtitles are always better, because you can never match the proper inflections on a dub, unless your voice actor is fluent in both languages.  
peter johnson/denny crane

[Jack Corbett]

(Raises hand and speaks meekly)
I made some short zombie films in lego...
(Slinks off into the background)

[Jack Corbett]

I'm trying to see Akira and Ghost in the Shell, But Nooo, the video shop had to move from the f**kin massive video access to down the road and turn into a one storey Blockbuster...

Anyway, my point is that the old one had millions - I'm not kidding - of videos until they moved 2-3 years ago. I'm pretty sure they would have Akira, but I'm having trouble finding it. I know some places that could have it, but they are in diferent suburbs... Anyway, what are these two Anime's like? I know from IMDb that they are good, but I want to hear personal opinions.

By the way, what is mutated Tetsuo like in Akira?

[JohnL]

Nobody has yet mentioned the two Heavy Metal movies, or Lightyears, or Starchaser: The Legend of Orin...