Knowing Your Roots... Anime Style

Lately I've been watching a number of newer anime series. Ride Back, in particular, is the most recent one that I picked up and I'm enjoying it quite a bit and await the 11th episode. My girlfriend and I have been watching To Love-Ru together along with Rosario + Vampire Capu2 as the episodes are released. It's the absurbity of the series, and the fact that they're the new evolution of the harem-style, we're liking.

While some people might toss them off as crap I like to think of them as charming in their own way. Yes, Rosario went even more into a fanservice anime with Capu2, and the censorship overlays went crazy, but there's still a charm to it. To Love-Ru is along the same lines, the absurdity of teh situation is what makes it great though. While they're about at the same level I find that Rosario gets a bit of a better rating because it has Mizuki Nana.

I've also been watching Tesuwan Birdy: DECODE and Kamen no Maid Guy.

As for knowing my roots, I know the roots of my being an anime fan very well. The first series I watched, and knew was Anime, was the Battle Angel OAV. Akira and Neon Genesis Evangelion furthered my brainwashing into a north american otaku along with a healthy does of Gundam, 0080 and 0083. It was in the late 90s, as evident by NGE being one of my first big exposeures that I found anime for what it was and learned how to adore it. The first tape I bought, and consequently the only, was of the subtitled version of Second Devil Hunter Yohko OAV, I think I still have it somewhere. When Yohko came to DVD I bought the whole series. I've also watched Evangelion: Death and Rebirth as a shitty chinese sub and the laserdisc version of the first part of End of Evangelion, Air.

So, I do know a fair amount of my roots. However, there is much more out there that I would like to see and I keep going back into the history of anime to watch things that are new to me. As I type this, I go into Gainax's past and watch Top O Nerae! Gunbuster. I have plans to watch more of the original Macross, actually finish watching Z Gundam as a series, I stopped at episode 22 then saw all three movies, and then maybe I'll watch Southern Cross or Mospeda to see how bad of a bastardization Robotech really is.

For now I've got Gunbuster to watch and enjoy.