Karas

[wolfx]

Ok, i've seen 2 episodes and thought it was awesome. Into the 3rd episode i'm like

Speechless. This OVA rocks.....the CGI is awesome and so is the action. The story throws the viewer into some sort of war fought between 2 sides in the spirit realm, seperate from the human realm. And the viewer really doesn't know WTF is going on except things blowing up with bullet time put to good effect.

The story reveals almost nothing about what's going on and reveals very little tit bits as each episode progresses, with cool effect. Thus due to the nature of the story , i won't say more. But check out the screenshot below. Karas has the ability to use anime *cough* I mean...CGI-magic, to transform into any vehicle he desires, which includes a batmobile sorta car, and in most occasions, a real cool looking jet.

Go watch it.

[Radd]

I saw the first episode, hmm, had to have been months ago, when it first appeared in fansub circles. Two groups were working on it, neither one was doing a very good job of it. Still, downloaded the first episode and absolutely loved it. Can't wait to see more.

[wolfx]

Akraze is abit slow but its a good sub. They're up to ep 3 now.

[grss1982]

any idea how many episodes/installments there are of this anime?

[chrono]

There are 6 and the first should be coming out in the US sometime around june/july.

[Fort Max]

Heh, this is out on Monday here in the UK.

I wasn't interested untill I saw this thread though as I'd heard next to nothing about it, it's ordered now though.

[wolfx]

Wow fort max...talk about impulse ordering. XD

[Fort Max]

Wow fort max...talk about impulse ordering. XD

393335[/snapback]

It's a disease, it must be, I've ordered more in the last two weeks then I usually do in a month. I've gone through my last paycheque like it's water.

I don't know why I'm buying so much all of a sudden...

[mpchi]

Hey guys. The R1 U.S. DVD release is out, and I picked it up pretty cheap at Best Buy $12.99 (sticker says $14.99, but it actually $12.99 at the cashier & online) and watched it. I was amazed by the quality of this show. Literally everything is done right in this show, from designs, color palette, animation, CG animation, effects, sound, music, storytelling...everything. So surprised a show this caliber was never widely advertised. In fact, I've never heard of it until a friend mentioned it a few months back. And was sitting in awe when finished watching it the first time through. Even the extras in the DVD is pretty good, with some 'making of' material and a old demo trailer from 2003 when the CG technology is not as nice. Interesting stuff. Heard that the vol.2 is coming out in Sept 2006. Gonna be a very long 5 months wait.

P.S. The R1 release has episode 1-3, but with the opening & ending in between episodes edited out, and pieced together into a 80 min movie. Don't seem to annoy me much, and maintained the flow of the show pretty well. But just thought some of you that are picky might want to know what Manga did on this release.

[Fort Max]

Manga have really picked themselves up, here in the UK they are putting out some great releases of shows that came out in the US a while ago under Pioneer.

I watched Karas myself yesterday, I knew next to nothing going into it and was very pleasently surprised, I was glad I watched the dub because the fight scenes had my eyes glued firmly to the actcion.

[mpchi]

Manga have really picked themselves up, here in the UK they are putting out some great releases of shows that came out in the US a while ago under Pioneer.

I watched Karas myself yesterday, I knew next to nothing going into it and was very pleasently surprised, I was glad I watched the dub because the fight scenes had my eyes glued firmly to the actcion.

394936[/snapback]

Man, talking about those actions. I mentioned to a friend about Karas and he went out and bought the DVD. He end up watching the opening fight sequences for 5 times. Thought I saw a good load of cool action sequence, until me sitting in awe after the first 6 minutes of the DVD. Got to see it to believe that some talented artists out there can really push the art further & further as long as they are willing to.

[Fort Max]

Totally, I'm watching it again now myself. The show has great rewatch value and makes loads more sense the second time around.

[Aegis!]

I recently got myself to watch Ep.3 , and man , this OVA totally rocks !

This is the Macross Zero of Sentai series , just seeing the opening sequence gets you on the verge of your seat

[promethuem5]

Ah crap...I saw this in Target today and didn't grab it cuz I'd never heard of it... sounds like I should have.

[wolfx]

Totally, I'm watching it again now myself. The show has great rewatch value and makes loads more sense the second time around.

395058[/snapback]

Yeah...i'm rewatching it and it does make more sense. Lots of things wouldn't make sense 1st time round or won't seem important.

Question though, when Yurine counts down, she doesn't use the usual

"Ichi , Ni, San, Si, Go, Lok, Nana, Hachi...etc" for 1,2,3,4,5,6.... but it was another dialect perhaps?

[VF-2SS-BloodPhoenix]

Heh, now I know where your AV comes from wolfx .

I just finished watching the U.S. Manga Ent. DVD and I thought it was okay. I'd like my shows to be a bit more coherent, but this show has a lot of scenes plopped into it that it feels like a scrambled puzzle. So yeah, sure some people will have to watch it a couple times to peice everything together. I've only watched it once, but there are a TON of unaswered questions from what I just saw. That will probably not suit most people. Not enough meat to keep some interested. To top that off, they throw in the two different worlds angle to kick it up a notch .

The action sequences are not very visible, and are all mostly dark making it difficult to tell what's happening. I really like the Karas' ability to change into different forms. That is a very slick idea, being my first time seeing anything like it before.

I think that although the idea is good, the execution is more complicated than it has to be and the direction pacing isn't to my liking.

[mpchi]

Hmm. Not sure why I hear some viewers refer Karas as Sentai or even Power Ranger rip off. Don't really see a team of five battling here to call it Sentai, nor does it have mecha or style like Sentai shows have often. What is the parallel here? It almost to me like someone saying Big-O is a Gundam rip off. LOL

In terms of the storytelling, it works for me. Sure I don't catch all the details the first time through. But the way they reveal more details bit by bit gives me a sense of discovery when watching it, rather than making it very straight forward and predictable. The storyline is nothing we've never seen or heard of before. But at least they tried to present it unlike all the similar action shows we've seen, making it a more unique experience from a otherwise, more straight forward story presentation of something we have seen before. So it may be confusing for some. But I like it that way actually.

[wolfx]

Its sentai cause it has a man that can "henshin" and have uber powers in his transformed form, like Kamen Rider. But sentai is probably wrong word to use cause sentai means a "team". Ah well....semantics.

[areaseven]

You're probably talking about tokusatsu.

[mpchi]

Hmm. Not sure why I hear some viewers refer Karas as Sentai or even Power Ranger rip off. Don't really see a team of five battling here to call it Sentai, nor does it have mecha or style like Sentai shows have often. What is the parallel here? It almost to me like someone saying Big-O is a Gundam rip off.    LOL

In terms of the storytelling, it works for me. Sure I don't catch all the details the first time through. But the way they reveal more details bit by bit gives me a sense of discovery when watching it, rather than making it very straight forward and predictable. The storyline is nothing we've never seen or heard of before. But at least they tried to present it unlike all the similar action shows we've seen, making it a more unique experience from a otherwise, more straight forward story presentation of something we have seen before. So it may be confusing for some. But I like it that way actually.

395348[/snapback]

wolfx. Don't mean to pin point at your comment. Its more like I saw other people at different forums also referred Karas as sentai or Power Ranger-ish. If all else, its closer to Kamen Riders if someone really have to make the comparison, rather than Power Rangers.

[VF-2SS-BloodPhoenix]

It's what areaseven mentioned and I think it's more in line with that than sentai stuff. Speaking of tokusatsu, is there anything out there that's as good as Garo? I watched the an episode of Kamen Rider Hibiki and that had way too much drama, very little action, wacky action at that (not to my liking), and the latest Sentai, Boukenger, doesn't really interest me that much. Sorry to derail the topic of interest here.

Oh, first time I noticed this, but the subtitles (text, presentation, translation) in fansubs blow away the subtitles in mass released stuff. Go fansubs!

[Hoptimus]

Bought this over the weekend and just watched it with some friends last night. Holy crap. That was awesome. When is the next one out? I mean they totally leave you hanging lol.

Did anyone else play Phantom Dust on the Xbox? The design of the charicters and the spirit world in Karas remind me alot of that game.

[bandit29]

Not sure what the hell was happening but Karas sure looked awesome.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

The show's got some sweet fight scenes, and now I'm going to have to watch it again to piece together the story. The main char's suit reminds me of one of Yoshimitsu's costumes in Tekken.

[JELEINEN]

Not bad. Visually, it was very impressive. Story-wise, I'm not sure I cared for how they paced it. It came out very jerky as it kept moving in and out of action scenes constantly. I'll keep picking up the discs for now anyway.

[Fort Max]

Well there's only two so it's not gonna be a massive drain on the old wallet.

Manga says, part two won't be out untill late september.

[wolfx]

I thought the pacing was fantastic. There are only 1-2 action scenes per episode, boths lasting gratiously long.

They revealed who/what is Karas in episode 3 and you just go WOAHHH!!

[Hikuro]

rented it at Hollywood Video lastnight, just finished watching it, I was actually rather impressed, very interesting OVA, I'll do some research on it and see what I can find to better understand the story.

[Fort Max]

Question: Did the US release come with a little mini poster/booklet with character descriptions on it?

If not then I'll scan mine for you, I've seen a lot of people say they don't understand it when this leftlet makes a lot of it clear.

[Hikuro]

I couldn't say myself since this is a rental, they always take out those type of materials. hell I remember renting dual disc dvd's and only getting the main movie disc.

[wolfx]

Is it just one episode in volume 1 of the US release? Truth be told nothing much can be made out of the 1s episode.

They paced it in a way that things get revealed as each episode progresses. Since i'm watching fansubs back to back i don't have problems with the story.

[Hikuro]

Well if 1 episode is 80 minutes then sure.

[Fort Max]

Manga got the theatrical versions apparently, "volume one" is actually movie one and is the first three episodes stiched together without intros etc.

[wolfx]

Manga got the theatrical versions apparently, "volume one" is actually movie one and is the first three episodes stiched together without intros etc.

399431[/snapback]

Cool. Then there will be 2 volumes only since its a 6 ep series. Will get it when the whole thing comes out.

Personally i don't find the story hard to understand at all? Not sure why quite a number of people can't understand it.

[Fort Max]

Manga got the theatrical versions apparently, "volume one" is actually movie one and is the first three episodes stiched together without intros etc.

399431[/snapback]

Cool. Then there will be 2 volumes only since its a 6 ep series. Will get it when the whole thing comes out.

Personally i don't find the story hard to understand at all? Not sure why quite a number of people can't understand it.

399480[/snapback]

Perhaps they only watched it once.

Voluem 2 is due late Sep btw.