CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

G'day all,
Being the total ignorant person that I am (no anime on tv helps), I have a question for all of you anime vets (veterans). Comparing Noir, Rahxephon, and Hack//Sign, which one would be the best? I like action, but Im not against character development either. I heard rahxephon was a lot better than nge, with robots etc, noir was about a bunch of assassins, and hack sign is in a game. Can you guys give me a run down perhaps, I don't exactly want to blow 105 bucks for nothing!
Thank you! God bless!
=RF=

.hack/sign was probally my fav. i havnt seen rahxephone, noir was sweet .. but i think id recommend .hack/sign. instead of forking over madd $, go to ebay, look for the hong kong version with an english dub .. should be about $19.99-$24.99 and about $12-$15 to ship it. very good price, concering the american dvds go for about 25.99 a dvd.

I've only got the first of the Noir series, but I want to buy the boxset. Its about assasins and has lots of style and the story so far is deeper than you first think. I'm guessing character development plays a big part as the two characters seem to carry heavy burdens. I haven't seen the others, so I can't comment on them. Sorry!

Why doesn't Australia have anime on tv! Grrrr!

Thanks guys! Yeah I was leaning towards hack sign anyway, so i'll go for that one.
And yes W4J, it really sucks that there's no anime on aussie tv! ARGH!!!! Unless you're rolling in the queen elizabeths of course and can afford foxtel. You like tintin W4J? Did you know they've released all of the eps in a boxset? (being a tintin fan Im sure you already knew that though...)

I can't buy stuff off ebay, because #1 I don't have a credit card, #2 I have no idea what places are good or bad, #3 I don't have a multi-region dvd. And even if i ordered them from aussie, they'd be the same price, so I might as well buy it from the shops, its easier that way. Thanks anyway!

Warrior 4 Jesus wrote:I've only got the first of the Noir series, but I want to buy the boxset.

There's a box set?

enishi wrote:.hack/sign was probally my fav. i havnt seen rahxephone, noir was sweet .. but i think id recommend .hack/sign. instead of forking over madd $, go to ebay, look for the hong kong version with an english dub .. should be about $19.99-$24.99 and about $12-$15 to ship it. very good price, concering the american dvds go for about 25.99 a dvd.

Hong Kong DVDs are bootlegs, and the quality of the DVDs are subpar (thus the extremely cheap prices). I wouldn't reccommend buying those in any way, shape, or form.

Yup, its only just been released though. Here in aussie its 115 bucks, like all other anime boxsets, so whatever the prices are in america, it would be the same for noir.

I don't buy bootlegs, I believe its called "stealing" and there's a little known commandment about that ay

Rahxephon is the best of the .hack was good but made you think and kinda had a weird plot twist Noir is not bad but not as god as say madlax or Mezzo so i would go with Rahxephon cool mechs and good story and its ends unlike EVA.

Hmm...i'll readup and have a looksee and decide which one then

The question is made more difficult by the fact that each of the titles you have listed belongs to a different genre. .hack//sign would be my recommendation, as it was excellent in many respects: a fascinating plot, good animation and music, interesting characters. I have seen very little of Noir, but I have heard that, on the positive side, the action scenes are excellent, but also that the plot develops a bit slowly, which may or may not be something that affects how much you enjoy the anime. About Rahxephon I know nothing.

Kokoro Daisuke wrote:Hong Kong DVDs are bootlegs, and the quality of the DVDs are subpar (thus the extremely cheap prices). I wouldn't reccommend buying those in any way, shape, or form.

blasphemy! so what if it looks like a .. crappy vcd. if your finances suck, its the best route. ive bought a few sets and watched some of my friends sets, and the video only pixelates about 7-12% of the entire video. not bad at aaaaall. if ya wanna spend $100-$200 on a box set, go to your best buy and shower them with cash.

Hmm...well I think im going to go with Rahxephon, seeing as I haven't seen EVA (and don't want to) i'll go for that, being that I haven't seen any mecha anime except the eva movies. Thanks for the help guys! I'll get noir next .

enishi wrote:blasphemy! so what if it looks like a .. crappy vcd. if your finances suck, its the best route. ive bought a few sets and watched some of my friends sets, and the video only pixelates about 7-12% of the entire video. not bad at aaaaall. if ya wanna spend $100-$200 on a box set, go to your best buy and shower them with cash.

I don't want to get into an argument about this, but I'd just refer you to one of rysing_furi's previous posts. Buying bootlegs cheap is indirectly stealing. The creators and producers of the anime bootlegged get NO funds from the purchase of a bootleg, and therefore lose out on money. I don't care how much more I have to pay, I take "showering Best Buy with cash" over theft from the people who create the entertainment I love any day.

I'm inclined to agree with kokoro_daisuke on this one. Being a Christian, I don't think stealing off a company would look good on my "record," and besides, my conscience would beat me with a stick . In the end, there's a saying "if you have to sin to get something you want, perhaps you weren't meant to have it?" .

the only one out of the three I've seen is RahXephon, which I highly recommend. while the plot in essence is rather simple, there are so many layers wrapping around it (like onions! or ogres!) and it's so well done that you never quite get it until the end....and then it all somehow makes sense!!! and then you are happy!!! Trust me, if you like mind-bending I have no idea what's going on but it looks good oh wait I get it now or at least that one part yay *feels proud* then I suggest you go buy this anime. If you just like it for the mechs that's okay too. ^___^

I would really like to see RahXephon, I'm just not sure if the content is ok for a Christian.

In my honest opinion, Rahxephon has nothing on Evangelion. Rah is just a dumb imitation. (please don't kill me) AAAACK! *runs*

IMHO go with hack sign, but in my second opinion go with rah, i could never get into noir

Haven't seen Noir, but a little of RahXephon and most of .hack//SIGN. Not easy to say which is "better", as sometimes it may be like comparing an apple and a pear. But anyway, .hack//SIGN I would say is the best...Not so much action, but it has good character development, and it's kinda "mysterious" which you don't understand. RahXephon may be a little like that, you don't get all what's going on (at least I feel like that :p), and it seems good at character development. But I'm in the early stages of it yet, so my opinion there can't count too much :p

enishi wrote:blasphemy! so what if it looks like a .. crappy vcd. if your finances suck, its the best route. ive bought a few sets and watched some of my friends sets, and the video only pixelates about 7-12% of the entire video. not bad at aaaaall. if ya wanna spend $100-$200 on a box set, go to your best buy and shower them with cash.

Are you joking.... If this doesn't persuade you to not buy any more bootlegs then I don't know what will. Organized criminal organizations have made money from stolen/bootleg products for almost a century. From the Russian and Italian mobs here in the States hijacking gasoline and cigarette trucks and selling them off. To the 1920's with bootleg liquor during the Prohibition era.

But in Asia the Hong Kong, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese mafias mainly use bootleg consumer goods to finance their activities. From anime, to merchandise, CDs, movies, all of that. And since the copyright laws are so lax they can do it pretty easily. Go to a subway in Tokyo and you can find Bob Dylan bootlegs, a Sony artist, but the authorities turn a blind eye to it as long as they don't bootleg Japanese artists.

And what's an easy outlet to sell these to unsuspecting and ignorant people? Ebay... People think they're just getting a good deal but instead they're more than likely funding organized crime and thus furthering their activities like the slave trade, opium trade, prostitution, you name it.

Now I know it probably sounds like I'm trying to go on a guilt trip here. I bought one bootleg in my life and didn't know it at the time. I told myself I'd never buy another again when I found out it was a fake. But if you're trying to justify why you should buy a bootleg you should really rethink that besides the fact it doesn't fund the creators.

I've seen snippets of Rahxephon so can't help a ton there. I don't really think you can compare Noir or .hack SIGN because they are so vastly different in their settings and stories. Noir is definitely more action oriented, but there's excellent, strong character development because the story is focused mainly around the two characters Mirielle and Kirika and their fighting the demons of their shared past. .hack SIGN is great just in regards to its story setting: here you have an mmorpg (massively mutltiplayer online role playing game) that is putting people into comas in the real world! The show has a some great charcters full of depth and personality, and there's a range of personalities as well which is always fun. The plot itself is quite emotional in my opinion, as you essentially get to know the main character Tsukasa in a very personal way, hearing his very thoughts and the stuggles he faces in supposedly being trapped in The World (the mmorpg). I would for sure say that .hack is more abstract in nature than Noir; there's many elements and little plot "nuggets" that the viewer is able to make their own interpretation of. I see this as a strenght though because then it's more personal to you and how the story and characters affect you! Ultimately I'd say go after all 3 series. What order you do it in though is up to you. If you're in the mood for action (and heck I'll just say it: chicks that kick some serious butt with style), then go with Noir. If you want something semi-abstract and very thought engrossing, check out .hack. From the little I know about Rahxephon, it's a "giant robo" kinda of anime on the surface (like Gundam, NGE, etc.) but I've also heard that, like NGE, it deals with some really deep existential issues and the like. I always check out http://www.animeondvd.com to get some info about new series that I'm interested in. Anyways, hope that was helpful! Good luck!

The only one that I've seen out of the big three is .hack, and that was...meh.

I'll have to pick Rahxephon, because it has the most letters.

I've seen all three, well, most of RahXephon anyway. And it was enough.

.hack is by far my favorite of the three, but I watched it while playing the PS2 games, which certainly heightened the experience for me. There's not a lot of action to the show. I know they are supposedly playing an MMORPG, but they do very little in the way of playing. They mostly stand around talking in some of the exotic locales of the game. This didn't bug me, though, because 1) the story was excellent, and 2) I was playing the games, so I personally experienced what playing the game was all about, so I didn't need the Sign characters to show me.

Noir is the most different of the three, but has similarities. It's about a pair of female assassins, which doesn't sit to well with me. Like .hack, it revolves around the main characters trying to discover a secret that others are willing to kill to defend. There's a lot more action and violence in this title than in .hack and a lot more moral ambiguity as well. It’s the “Girls with Gunsâ€

You know what? Seriously... just watch all three!!!! A little anime never hurt anyone.