El-Hazard Online
General => El-Hazard Online => Topic started by: asdfg on December 30, 2009, 06:54:13 pm
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Hey all, yeah I'm new as you can tell. I'm just wondering how you got into El-Hazard.
For me I found out it was a sister series to Tenchi-Muyo. As a huge TM fan I had to watch this and I liked it a lot.
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Hi! Welcome to the forums! :)
I took the liberty to edit your post to correct some mistakes (I'm on Grammar-Nazi mode today :P)
As far as I'm concerned, I saw the Wanderers at a Portuguese TV channel (RTP 2) and really liked it!
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An acquaintance of mine on a mailing list strongly recommended the series, and after doing a little bit of research I decided "Why not?" and bought the OVA DVD set and was astounded at the quality of the story. This positive experience convinced me to give "The Wanderers" a try too which I also really enjoyed. And from there, my status as a El-Hazard fan was cemented.
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A close cousin of mine was the person who got me into anime a lot in general. One of the first animes he introduced me to was El Hazard: The Wanderers. So, I actually watched the Wanderers before I watched the OVA.
I found the Wanderers nice, comedic, and light-hearted. It had a certain zany endearing quality to it.
The basic story premise - the premise of a passionate rivalry between two smart high school students (smart in somewhat different ways though) spilling into serious conflict and warfare on an alien planet - just struck me as very amusing and compelling for some reason. I've always liked fantasy stories that place modern humans in fantastical somewhat alien worlds, and El Hazard is no exceptions.
And then, when I saw the OVA, that permanently made El Hazard one of my all-time favorite animes and anime franchises.
To this day, and with me having now watched many anime, Katsuhiko Jinnai remains my all-time favorite anime villain, and the Makoto/Jinnai rivalry has a charm to it that I honestly haven't quite seen in any other anime rivalry. Fujisawa and Ifurita (all versions) are also favorites of mine.
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I knew about El-Hazard because of its connection to Tenchi Muyo but also because at the time I was really getting into anime (1999 or so) it was one of the more popular series out there. I also always heard that El-Hazard had a "very good ending."
In the summer of 2003 I was looking around on one of the file-sharing networks for Anime Music Videos, a search intended to find a video using the Talking Heads' song "Once In A Lifetime" yielded somewhat different results when I downloaded Michael Ko's El-Hazard AMV using Sarah Brightman's "Once In A Lifetime." I was very intrigued with what I saw.
And so El-Hazard eventually went down on my "To Watch" list. But time and money conspired to keep me from finally getting the OVA box set until about six years ago this month (January 2004). I watched the series, enjoyed it, and then put it down for a while. Some months later I re-watched the OVA series and found that I not only enjoyed it more, but that the story was much more complex and deep than I had noticed on my first viewing. This fondness for the series, and enjoying it on different levels has only increased over the years. That is a rare quality.
I enjoyed OVA 2 well enough, but it just missed something. The Alternative World was enjoyable only for Parnasse and a few other stray character moments. The Wanderers was like a good light beer to me if El-Hazard OVA is the finest brew out there! In other words, I preferred Wanderers to OVA 2 and The Alternative World. The manga ranks just below The Wanderers and ahead of OVA 2 and The Alternative World for making a good go at combining the best aspects of both continuities while making the story more condensed and action packed.
My favorite primary characters are Ifurita (OVA), Rune Venus (OVA/Wanderers), Afura Mann, Makoto, Fujisawa, Jinnai, Nanami, Shayla-Shalya, Miz, Diva, Alliele, Fatora, Ifurita (Wanderers), Ifurita (Manga) Parnasse, and Qawool.
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"Habba Habba Zoot Zoot"
... seriously, all I saw was that AMV and bought the series.
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"Habba Habba Zoot Zoot"
... seriously, all I saw was that AMV and bought the series.
For those how don't know it (and those who feel nostalgic):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIM2dV9R7fA
:)
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It was recommended to me by a friend way back when. I bought the boxed set and later got the "Wanderers" and (gag) "Alternative World" series.
I remember watching the first OAV 1 episode and thinking that my then-12 year old daughter would enjoy this...and then I hit that final scene and said "No, I don't think so!"
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Jeff,
Funny, Makoto's reaction in that scene was very similar to yours. ;-)
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I remember watching the first OAV 1 episode and thinking that my then-12 year old daughter would enjoy this...and then I hit that final scene and said "No, I don't think so!"
No doubt that the Wanderers version is more adequate for kids, although the OVA is rated 13 and up, if I'm not mistaken.
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No doubt that the Wanderers version is more adequate for kids, although the OVA is rated 13 and up, if I'm not mistaken.
Let me put it this way: even if I decided it was okay, my wife definitely had objections. And if the mama ain't happy...
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Let me put it this way: even if I decided it was okay, my wife definitely had objections. And if the mama ain't happy...
I totally understand: the OVA timeline is by no means WAF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_acceptance_factor)-compilant. :)
And for the record, I do think that the OVAs (and AW) should be rated at age of 15 and up (but that's my opinion).
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If I may resurrect this here thread, I don't know if I would have ever heard of EH let alone watched it if not for Tenchi Muyo. I wasn't into anime in general until I happened to see Tenchi on TV stateside (whoever was in charge of marketing anime in the U.S. in the late 90's - early 00's was a godsend) and many years later, after exploring Hayashi's other works and at the recommendation of others I took the plunge and all I can say is I wish I had sooner!
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Like Ray above, I came into El-Hazard years on down the line after being familiar with Hayashi's other works. His work on Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040, Battle Programmer Shirase but most especially his time with the Tenchi Muyo series. It wasn't until I was doing some peeking around his production credits that I came across El-Hazard and remembered seeing VHS' and DVD's for it floating around the usual joints back in the day (RIP Suncoast). Soon as I knew it had his magic touch in it I decided it was finally time.