Having Your Hands Full {The Parent Edition} Part 2

Having Your Hands Full {The Parent's Edition} Part 2

 

Yu Yu Hakusho- This isn’t even a joke, no matter which show I used to introduce someone to anime, Yu Yu Hakusho has always played a pivotal part in their conversion.  My favorite series of all time, Yu Yu Haksuho manages to transcend the usual shonen fair to bring something really potent, poetic, hilarious and edge of your seat, it does this while still finding a way to be wholly relatable and carrying a big heart on it’s sleeves.  

       Yu Yu Hakusho focuses on young outsider Yusuke Urameshi, who can’t seem to go anywhere without people pointing fingers at him, fighting him, so much so he doesn’t see the people that really love him and are trying to understand him. When Yusuke does what seems like the unthinkable to some, rescuing a boy from a speeding car, he dies (first episode everybody), it’s then that he sees all the people who care about him. Not knowing it this would be the first time his moral perception would be opened and altered leaving it open for everything that would come afterwards.

     Yusuke goes through an ordeal to get his life back, as he does it he gets an insight into the lives of those who love him, his rival Kuwabara who is more than a thug but an honorable young man with a code, as well as his true love Keiko. someone who can open her heart to the world around her and see the special things in those that most would ignore. Someone who would help bring him from the brink of death.

       Once he returns the powers of Spirit World ask him to be Earth’s new Spirit Detective, someone who investigates demons and rogue humans that may be endangering all three worlds. So this is where Yusuke’s life would undergo constant transformation, as he connects with his true self and his feelings and how it would affect the countless lives in the world and those closest to him. Defying expectations as he does, always thrown into situations he shouldn't be prepared for and seem destined to rip him apart.

       It’s a hell of a ride, Yusuke being the take no crap sort of person he is, Kuwabara as mentioned the determined honorable human that will make you laugh, Kurama the well-mannered intellectual demon who used to be the legendary bandit of demon world and Hiei the cut throat, fiery tempered demon. Along with the rest of the cast that includes a talking baby who is actually the prince of spirit world, you  realize that nothing is truly strange but it is moving and beautiful, Yu Yu Hakusho does that to you and will to anyone you show it to.

 

Hellsing/Hellsing Ultimate- People always complain that the vampire concept is dead to a mainstream audience, no one has told Anime this or Comics or TV shows with vampires in it like The Strain and  even Penny Dreadful. Hellsing is a momentous achievement, one that if you have a parent that is into horror can see how anime knows how to push those boundaries in many ways, sometimes they push in a way that becomes quite iconic. While maintaining enough vampire lore to make fans of Stroker and of countless other stories cheer in glee. Hellsing is a masterpiece painted in blood.

        Hellsing shows an organization with the same name that hunts in the shadows in the name of her majesty the queen and all those that live in England. They hunt vampires, the ghouls they control and organizations who wish for complete anarchy and chaos. Among their trained killers they have a secret weapon, a very old and powerful, seemingly indestructible vampire by the name of Alcuard.  Something one cop Seras Victoria learns first hand, after being attacked by a vampire and bitten by Alcuard in order to save her life.

       Once he has, Seras has become apprentice to one of the greatest vampires in history and a part of an organization that hunts and kills her kind and the strange abominations that have been artificially created to seem like vampires. Alcuard has an interesting relationship with the leader of the Hellsing organization, Integra Wingate Hellsing.  One of master and servant and yet him being chaos against the forces of chaos may lead to some devastating results. The first series was moody and atmospheric and though it doesn’t followed the manga the entire way through it quickly established Hellsing as a favorite among anime titles. The other Hellsing Ultimate is a tribute to the manga, adapting the style and story more closely that will leave you in awe as well as your parent. An Amazon review I once saw called it distasteful in some of the things it said, they believed it was for shock value but they forget these are monsters and you're in their world now. Just warn them to put on their big pants because like many titles on this list the show is very mature.

 

Case Closed/ Detective Conan- If there is one thing anime does well, it’s show love for the genres that we appericate here in the West. It takes you down some fun routes and some surprising places. Detective Conan is a great example, the most successful mystery anime series of all time as well as being one of the longest running series (I believe 8th), it manages to incorporate all the necessary things to turn anyone, including a parent into an Otaku.

 

       Easy accessibility, I say this in how there are many episodes that can be watched without feeling that  your missing something. Yet once you find you really enjoy the series, there is an underlining story filled with twists that reach explosive points you aren't going to expect. It’s not easy to run almost 800 episodes and keep the underlining story interesting but they do so.  Of course the mystery aspect is always captivating, complex and unique, it takes someone as gifted as Conan Edogawa to figure out who did it.

         The characters are built on throughout the series and there is a surprising amount of focus placed on love, which shows that underneath Detective Conan there is a big heart there. Parents may get the references to the large array of detective novels and TV shows that character’s names are rooted from or certain cases as well as locations, which means they get to tell you something that maybe you didn’t know. As I’ve said there’s plenty to sink your teeth in and there does seem to be a slow movement of getting more Conan back here in the US. You have to hold out hope, in the meantime there’s movies and specials, several parts to cases, that will keep you occupied for a long time.

       The series focuses on Shinichi Kudo/ Jimmy Kudo who is considered the modern day Sherlock Holmes, this teenager helps the police with what seem like impossible mysteries, his keen observations skills and intellect are unsurprising when realizing he’s the child of a world famous novelist and a retired actress. He takes his friend and love interest, Ran Mori/ Rachel Moore to a theme park when he witnesses a shady deal taking place. Unfortunately during the deal of a man and two mysterious men in black, he’s caught seeing too much, attacked and given an experimental poison that’s meant to kill him, instead it turns him into a child.

 

       Now a child he seeks the help of his neighbor Professor Agasa, together they make a new identity for him, Conan Edogawa, it allows him to move in with Rachel and her bumbling private detective father Koguro Mori/ Richard Moore. Now as a kid he uses tools to solve crimes and lifting her father’s reputation, knowing that no one will listen to a kid, in the hopes that the cases will be able to present these two men, the organization they are a part of and a way to return his body to normal.

 

Master Keaton- I can’t help it I’m a sucker for both Master Keaton and Monster, so any chance to pitch them to the doubtful or a way to get  someone into anime I do so. Master Keaton is a wonderful series that focuses on Taichi Higura Keaton, a former SAS member who teaches part time and also is an insurance investigator for Lloyd’s of London. These cases lead him around the world, meeting all sorts of people with hopes and dreams, like his and others that run parallel, sometimes (more often than not) these investigations lead him into dangerous situations that along with his training, his knowledge of archeology often helps to save him.

        What are Keaton’s dreams you ask. The truth is that Keaton as an archeologist as well, hopes to focus on that full time and get the chance to do an excavation near the Danube River to prove a theory that the area may have been the truth origins of European Civilization. Quite the mouthful, it’s a detailed show that leaves you open to the world around you, it’s astounding on how you can appreciate all things big and small, if there is a series that your parents may beg you to watch the next episode of, Master Keaton just might be it.

 Monster- Brilliant Neurosurgeon Dr. Kenzo Tenma is a Japanese man in Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall, he’s on his way to reaching the very top of the ladder, engaged to the  hospital director's daughter.  Something changes though when a Turkish woman blames him for not operating on her husband, when he could have saved his life. Haunted by this he realizes the world around him is ruled by politics and to them life is not equaled.

         When Dr. Tenma is called into an emergency he finds two twins, a boy shot in the head and his sister in catatonic shock. The complex surgery is something he believes only he can do to save the boy’s life before he’s asked to operate on the Mayor instead. Making the decision to operate on the boy crumbles everything he ever worked for.  Cast out and engagement broken, Dr. Tenma holds on to the truth that all life is equal and what it truly means to be a doctor. That’s when an incident occurs finding two doctors and the director of the hospital murdered by poison candy. Tenma gets his a second chance though he already understand what he really wants in life.

    Ten years later while seeing over a lock picker, he finds the man missing from his hospital bed and chases him to a building, starting to realize the man is running from something. What he finds is what his patient had been warning him about, a monster. A beautiful young man who executes his patient and turns out to be the boy he saved all those years ago. Soon Tenma finds out that this boy has been systematically killing middle age couples across Germany. Feeling he’s responsible he goes after the boy by first going after his strange past that leads to dark corners of where the true monster of humanity resides.  

      A meditation on the human soul, it’s capacity for good and evil, Monster is a high achievement in more than being a psychological drama, it’s a poetic expression of life and what it can make of us. It's abilities to transform you and how you may transform the world around you, the existence of a choice and how people see that existence quite differently.  If you have a few shows you know you’d want to sell your parent on, make sure that Monster is one of them.   If you’ve never seen it then the both of you are in for a treat.

 

 

Full Metal Alchemist/ Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood - It's hard to achieve such great things for one series but going back and achieving it again is another thing entirely. We've seen movies that brought great shows, defying the odds, well here's a show that brought another great show. It is something very human, very personal and very possible in being the choice to sit down a parent for. After all Full Metal Alchemist is iconic, the way shows like  so many other anime your shaking your fist at the screen for not being on the list. (Don't worry we're getting there, quite a bit you know and even more we'll have to explore and talk about in other ways.)

       A story of redemption and brotherhood, Full Metal Alchemist shows two young boys raised by their mother diving into Alchemy, the study of transmuting one thing into another. Naturals in the art they quickly feed their appetite to learn more until their mother passes away and there's no way to cope with it, with being alone and what they loved is their only hope in bringing back who they love.  However they do what is forbidden, human transmutation and pay the ultimate price. Edward loses his arm and his leg and his brother Al loses his entire body, only surviving because his brother managed to connect his soul to a suit of armor.
      Surviving they go to search for the philosopher stone in the hopes of returning their body, even if it means one might have to become a state alchemist, to some that means a soldier, a dog of the state, to do it. Their life was changed by consequences and now they'll see a world of consequences and how they may play a pivotal part in more then just their sole journey of redemption.

Not a bad start for shows to give to your parents to watch. Some of you might ask well what about Attack On Titan and all the other no brainers, well of course show these to them, the truth is you never know what show might make someone a diehard anime fan. Perhaps a Gundam series is what would get your parents to understand anime.  Trigun has Western sensibilities, Wolf’s Rain is poignant. Perhaps a movie, like Akira or Grave of The Fireflies or Perfect Blue or even Places Promise In Our Early Days. All find choices and will be on the next list but these are some of many starting points to work with.

 

     A movie list is also definitely in order (Vampire Hunter D) but there are enough anime to write all day about what you can show a parent. So I suppose more lists are in order maybe even to show over the holidays, flashback of previous lists. In the meantime pop in that Lupin The Third, that Patlabor, that Psycho-Pass, and give them series that they won’t be able to forget.

A Podcast Companion

https://soundcloud.com/rats-on-a-plague-podcast

*Need more otaku time, well for more ideas why not hop on to the newly minted podcast Rats On A Plague Ship. A podcast that speaks on all matters of geekdom with yours truly and my fellow co-host Sal Almaraz. The true cure to when the hours feel like they drag!

Having Your Hands Full (Parent's Edition)

 

 

Are you a teenager trying to have your parents understand why you find anime so significant? Maybe you’re an adult whose watched it for years and years and feels it’s time to really sit down with them and show them what’s been more than a life obsession but a part of your life, after all we want our parents  to know our life (sometimes). Perhaps you aren’t interested in showing your parents but  know someone who is, or someone you feel you want to introduce anime to. Anime like any genre has a stereotype, what they assume is anime isn’t always the case and what is has more substance and far more rewarding at times than they think.

Then again maybe you just need a list to sit someone down to watch anime, otaku or not, well this might just be your list

 

Cowboy Bebop- Hailed as a masterpiece that had led to a turning point in anime, in story telling as well as the spread of anime in North America in a new sense.  There's so many thing about the series that that go well beyond  simply the name. Though I’ve found after years of watching anime, that I have gone back to it as a reminder on what had my eyes latched to the TV on those late nights and  how it stayed with me long after I’ve gone to bed. Shows like this, deeply thought out story telling among a wide range of styles and sensations that it leaves you with. Ones that are filled with fun, joy, sorrow, horror or the sense you’re just watching something real cool.

     Many shows try to be cool, Cowboy Bebop is cool and what so many strive to be, creative input from here on would spawn so many classics though a good deal of those arguably have come from the creative minds of this series. Space bounty hunters with checkered pasts always down on their luck and the strange places it takes them would normally seem like a fun but impersonal experience and yet Bebop managed to accomplish a personal experience, a bow tie between East and West, a wholly relatable feeling. If nothing else the name will come up when you’re introducing anime to them whether you like it or not, you might want to give it another viewing.

 

Berserk- If you are showing your folks something, no matter your age you might have reservations  showing them something well adult oriented. If you can move past that though than why not show them a series that captures an unbelievable scope when it comes to the concept of power, the rise of it, the cost, the lives it transforms, the many roads it leads to and all the brutal aspects that come with it regardless. Set upon a medieval backdrop Berserk is a mostly backstory driven show and a perfect organic combination of fantasy (mostly in the end) with all the themes and deep moving storytelling it had shown in throughout the series.

 

      Guts is a mercenary that came from nothing, seemingly born with a talent for killing, he finds some who is his better and becomes a cornerstone to this person’s dream. A man named Griffith who leads a mercenary group called The Band of The Hawk, as the faithful devoted follow him in his climb in power. Becoming a faithful necessity in this dream eventually Guts finds out more about himself than what he feels people have told him for years, seeing the darker things that are in work beyond crosses of swords to obtain this power, the cost to live with it and his own dreams and perhaps his own path.  Yet the series also shows what walking from such a thing could mean, chaos and perhaps a deconstruction of everything you could ever believe in. Riveting it not only shows others a series that has art and storytelling beyond what they may have expected but also the merits of other genres when done with a vision in many ways, one way, being Berserk.

 

 

Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex – Ghost In The Shell was a landmark film that pushed the boundaries of animation and storytelling, influencing science fiction for filmmakers and comic creators alike on both the East and West side of the world. So who could believe that it could be touched again and again and still make it more profound, more thought provoking than ever thought possible, yet it did and part of doing this was with a TV show.

 

       Two seasons of the show that took the cyberpunk classic, unwove it and wrote down all these other ideas that went with what it already contained, they went together like peanut butter and jelly. It would be easy to call it a cop show in that way and yet impossible too. The range of topics and ways the episodes were tackled were numerous and unique proving that revolutionizing is just something Ghost In The Shell does. It did so by unveiling in episodes what we loved, growing closer to the characters like Major Kusanagi, Batou and Chief Aramaki along with the rest of the team, let’s not forget the Tachikomas.

 

      Covering a wide range of topics such as mortality, immortality, corruption, cybernetics/ robotics, politics, terrorism, border issues, refugees, philosophy, personal lives, love, crime and intrigue. The stories are told with precision and the sort of high production quality that never comes off as cheesy or cliché. In fact a parent may sit down and forget their watching an anime, yet would learn that they are because that’s what anime is all about diversity in storytelling, animation, and imagination.

 

 

Fruits Basket- There are comedies that need to be watched, why? Well because they are such an important element in anime, one that those that are highly critical of anime never expect to be the sort that turns them on to the genre. There are so many classics of the sort such as Ranma1/2, Love Hina, Tenchi Muyo, Urusei Yatsura, the list goes on and on. What is great about comedy in anime is it becomes easy to relate to the characters and when things take a dramatic turn, which they do sometimes, it allows you to respect another subgenre in anime, and that is drama.

 

      Fruits Basket is one such show that masterly blends drama and comedy, it also has a unique premise that instead of being a gimmick allows you to see the perspective of the large amount of characters in the series. These characters continue to feed back and build strong center characters like its heroine Toru Honda who might be one of the nicest people in all existence, just saying.  Toru Honda lost her mother to a car crash a year before and since then has secretly lived in a tent ( not counting the time she stayed with her grandpa for a bit) in the forest, unbeknownst to anyone in order to not trouble anyone. See what I mean about the nice.

       Even though her friends would gladly help Toru, who you find can easily give sage like life changing advice doesn’t know how to take her own.  So she continues to go to work and school and lives this way when she is discovered, by the prince of her school no less Yuki Sohma and invited to live with him and his young perverted Uncle Shigure.

     That’s when she stumbles upon a secret. The Sohma family has a curse that when hugged by the opposite sex they turn into the twelve signs of the zodiac…and the cat. When trusted with this secret Toru must reach out to this family filled with traumatic secrets while trying to maintain their cover and hope that living with them isn’t a temporary thing but one in which she finds a family of her own.

     Things get real crazy when Kyo, the outsider and the cat comes to live there as well, determined to finally defeat his rival Yuki. Of course the true concern is the head of the family that all fear, and  he has his eyes are on Toru.  Romance, friendship and personal struggles make this a captivating show, if you’re looking for something a little different to show your family why not this!

 

Chobits- On the subject of different, I’ve seen firsthand how Chobits can win the heart of non-believers. Young Hideki whose lived on a farm most of his life moves to Tokyo, there he is supposed to go to cram school and hopefully then pass his college entrance exams. The big city has lots of things to offer that he’s never seen before but the most astounding are Persocoms.  Human appearance like robots essentially and in some ways walking, talking, personal computers, these Persocoms are changing the way people live.

       Usually in the appearance of women though sometimes men, Hideki finds a world he hardly understands, one he’ll be thrust into when he finds a discarded Persocom in the trash (which he mistakes for a body at first), the mysterious Chi.

        Not knowing anything about Persocoms is the least of Hideki’s problem, taking care of her as if she was a human is, Hideki is a hyper sensitive virgin which makes everything all the more difficult. When he does try to learn about Chi, even with the help of his neighbor Shinbo things just don’t seem to make sense. Chi lacks a memory disc and can only say her name, though she has the software to learn if you teach her, even so she seems to have the power of a supercomputer. While Hideki works through these strange things in this strange world, he soon finds that Chi’s importance lies in something far more potent, that something is in his own heart. Hopefully he doesn’t have a fatal nose bleed beforehand though.

      As relevant maybe even more so since it has come out. Chobits is a major accomplishment which is saying something considering Clamp’s track record.  At the heart of it this is a story about love, about the desire to be complete and the fear it brings in some people. Questions in the show on how to look at Persocoms is now a question that we are asking with robots, not so much science fiction anymore they are swiftly becoming a pivotal part of society. Maybe a more pleasant resolution to these concerns can be found in Chobits.

 

Rurouni Kenshin/Samurai X- The essential epic of Rurouni Kenshin is a no brainer that must be shared, along with many on the list, this is the first one I share with those I want to give a proper introduction of what anime can be.  A story of redemption and of love is as soul searching as it asks it’s characters to be, how our past has shaped us but how our future can have a more profound effect on us. This may sound silly to say but if ever you needed a show that promoted peace over violence it would be this show.

     Before those that are familiar with the series shake their head, what I mean is truly peace is all the characters in the series want and if you want an optimistic view of humanity, maybe that’s all we as people want. The main protagonist Kenshin Himura is a prime example, having been an assassin in the war that would usher in the Mejii era, Kenshin would forgo a place in politics and live a life as a wanderer in redemption for all the lives he’s taken in his past life.

     In doing this he meets Karou who struggles to keep the swordsmanship her father  had instructed to students alive, the sword style that does not kill. Before he knows it Kenshin begins to call her home his, along with other people affected by the war and the era that has followed, outsiders that can become a family together.  While Kenshin having been a part of the war and taken lives knows there is no such style that exists, he slowly through his past coming into his present finds that like his reverse sword, there is a way to implement such a style. A way to save lives instead of taking them.

 

         The show wins hearts instantly and is also a good way to showcase a certain style of anime, the long running sort that can at times have as much substance as any other sort, arguments against this belief are noted. If you do choose to show them Ruoruni Kenshin then you might want to also go on the hunt for what is considered an OVA but I prefer to look at as a two hour movie. It shows the way Kenshin became an assassin and what would happen to change our favorite X shaped scar  swordsman into a wanderer. The title is Trust and Betrayal. The tone is different than the TV show but rightfully so and is to me still one of the highest achievements in anime. Might as well show them Reflection after the TV show which maintains this feel and concludes the saga all together. Hey you can even show them the live action trilogy based on the manga/anime. You might have just made a true Otaku out of your parent.

 

Podcast Companion

https://soundcloud.com/rats-on-a-plague-podcast

*Need more otaku time, well for more ideas why not hop on to the newly minted podcast Rats On A Plague Ship. A podcast that speaks on all matters of geekdom with yours truly and my fellow co-host Sal Almaraz. The true cure to when the hours feel like they drag!