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Now and Then, Here and There (Complete Collector's Boxed Set)

Now and Then, Here and There (Complete Collector's Boxed Set)

List Price: $69.95
Your Price: $62.96
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Please disregard the other guy
Review: I'm surprised at the canadian that gave this a 2 star. The least he could have done was finish the set before giving his opinion- that is if he did indeed buy this boxed set.
I first saw this show on AXN in my country and no matter how unpleasant things got for the characters, I just had to watch it until the finale. After the last episode aired, I just knew I had to get the DVDs.
The 3 DVDs are also available seperately, they each have high reviews here at Amazon. Don't take his word for it, or mine. Take the effort to check those reviews, THEN decide if you want to buy this.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Beautiful Epic...
Review: If really amazing, Metropolis style CGI animation is what you require for viewing Anime, then, yeah...maybe you shouldn't see this. But I thought the animation was pretty nice, and the story was so engaging and heartfelt that even if the animation was Saturday morning cartoon quality, I would have still enjoyed this. During episodes 11-13, there were many moments that I could not fight off tears...this is some intense stuff. If you like Anime that makes you laugh, think and cry, don't sleep on this one.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An excellent series that is very brutal and depressing
Review: If you are expecting a mecha series based on the cover illustrations, you are going to be badly disappointed. If you are hankering for a serious and compelling anime series that will challenge you, "Now and Then, Here and There" (NTHT) is a very fine example. This series is a match with "Grave of the Fireflies" in its depressing story.

Briefly, this series covers the exploits of a 15 year old boy, Matsutani Shuzo or Shu, as he is pulled into the distant future when he attempts to rescue a girl, Lala-Ru, from a mechanized extraction force. In this distant future, Shu experiences some really tough ordeals as he continues his attempts to rescue the girl and return home. What Shu experiences is no match for what an American girl, Sara, who has been abducted from the same present that Shu exists and whom he meets, goes through in this series.

Through the course of NTHT, issues like child soldiers, torture, rape and its effects, the micro aspects of war, and even conservation are dealt with. No matter how tasteful some of these issues have been tackled in the series, the impact is no less brutal. You WILL flinch at some of the brutal stuff depicted in the series. Some scenes are absolutely gut wrenching.

NTHT has 13 episodes and none of them are fillers. Each episode follows on from the previous episode with no recaps. The pacing is very good with no significant let up in the story flow. From the first five episodes in the first disc, NTHT builds up the brutal and depressing world in a very unrelenting manner. The second and third discs then advances the series like an unstoppable train towards its cathartic ending. Watching all 13 episodes in a marathon session is not recommended unless you want to be emotionally drained at the end.

This is not an easy series to watch but you will be greatly rewarded when you finish it. For serious anime buffs, this series comes very highly recommended.

The box set is attractively priced and includes an additional disc filled with extras.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Wonderful Sci-Fi Story
Review: If you are into fancy graphics of today's animations, this Anime is not for you. "Now and Then, Here and There" does not have particularly good animation and poor DVD transfer quality doesn't help the matter much either. But this Anime has a lot of heart and terrific story that is reminiscent of classic Sci-Fi novel. If you are open minded and care for great storytelling, you'll find this Anime quite engaging.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This is good stuff
Review: Im telling everyone right now that this show requires patience. It starts off painstakingly slow, but it all comes together in the last 3 episodes. Not only does it speed up at the end, but it proves to be one of the greatest series ever made. The animation is crappy, I concede, but I think thats the point that the director was trying to make (juxtaposing childish, low quality animation, with a brutal storyline of realization). The music also greatly accents the tension of the final scenes. I dont know what to compare this too. Its one of the greatest series Ive ever seen, animated and live-action.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Brutal
Review: It almost could be a joke. Akitaroh Daichi, the director of hit hyperactive, high-octane childrens comedies like "Child's Toy" and "Fruits Basket" has, nestled in the middle of his resume, an unrelentingly depressing and violent war drama unsuitable for almost anybody. It is, however, not a joke, and it is played with total seriousness. This relatively short (13 episodes) manipulates your emotions from beginning to end with total mercilessness, jerking you around with tragedy and disillusionment, instead of mere excess (an occassional flaw of his. "Jubei-Chan", for example, piled on the gags with something approaching desperation, yet never managed to be more than vaguely entertaining). Its genius, and the reason it should rightly stand up as a classic, is with its additional skewering of anime narrative mainstays. Shu, the main character, is introduced as a traditional "shonen" character, pure of heart, unflagging of optimism, and a novice of kendo. He likes a girl, the sister of his overly serious and more talented kendo rival, whom he swears to beat in order to win her affections. On his way home he sees a strange girl attacked by odd machines and defends her, hence being pulled into a strange other world. There he discovers a hellish dystopia run by a mad dictator who needs his new friend (who has magical powers) to fulfil his plans. He also meets an American girl who was also pulled here by mistake. Not surprisingly, he swears to save both the girls and defeat the bad guy. And, if everything went according to plan, he would do just that, singlemindedly plowing through difficulty with the strength of his passion, winning the girl, finding friends, and learning about himself. Everyone would smile and the sun would shine. We expect this, and it's obvious that Shu expects it also. Instead, from about the third episode on, EVERYTHING proceeds to go horribly wrong. He's tortured, the American is raped, war rages, and the magical girl... well, I won't ruin everything. A momentary lapse that seems like a rest point halfway through the series turns out to be merely a prelude to even more tragedy and horror. Nevertheless, the series MAINTAINS the traditional shonen storyline, albeit in a twisted and much more mature manner, ending in a way that is as unexpected as it is familiar. To say the very least, it is both gorgeous and horrible, a work of grand scope and vision. I have never wept so much over anime, or almost anything (the end of "Gandhi" maybe), in all my life. "Now and Then" does for the shonen adventure what "Evangelion" did for the giant robot, what "His and Hers Circumstances" did for high-school romance, and what the as-yet unimported "Saishuu Heiki Kanojo" (translated, I believe, as "Ultimate Weapon Girlfriend" or something) did for cyborgs. Both deconstruction and the culmination of the genre, it is further proof of anime's new Golden Age.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wonderful ... leaves you with heartbreaking fondness
Review: It's a wonderful film, high in its characterizations and interactions. Here's the lowdown on the film as far as genre, content and art style.

Genre: Drama/Sci-Fi. It is more a drama than a Science Fiction, though it contains elements of Sci-fi, unexplainable technology and distant future/alternate dimenional settings. It is mainly a drama pitted together in a horrible situation.

Artstyle: Realistic, similar to the Gundam Series, Princess Mononoke, Vampire Hunter D. Lacks the common anime features: exaggerated facial expressions (blown up eyes, river size tear trails), exaggerated bodily features (larger than life breasts, muscles where muscles just aren't).

Violence: High level. Bloody corpse, blood. Brutality, cruel behavior. It suggests rape twice and shows an attempt at rape. There is no needless violence, every notion of violence has an emotional and psychological impact on the characters. The rape scenes follow in the same pattern. This is a tasteful film which paces its violent scenes in full context with the story and the development of the characters and their situation. Not suggested for young children.

Setting: In foreign land/world/time (described as the distant future by many sources). Postapocolyptic, during a great war. World is under an extreme drought, water is very valuable (this is a main issue in the film but does not superscede the situations of the characters.

Themes: Finding ones place in life; Doing what is expected Versus Doing what is right; Survival; The value of Life.

Jist: I don't know what it is with the Japanese and Guys with sticks helping a helpless girl (ICO for example). You have a guy saving a girl. From the beginning until the end this is what it is mainly about, though involving many other characters.

I find the most important element of this film to be its characters. They are so diverse in their own way; there aren't a hundred different characters but each comes from a setting, sometimes similar with others, but they all have completely different situations. A lot of the situations start from one main point: being forced into another way of living. The way they deal with it and their exact way of living is different. Shu's situation is the main focus, as is obvious from the beginning of the film. After becomming invovled with Lala-ru he is determined to help her. She is probably the most influencial character, every character is effected by her either directly or indirectly. But Shu is the only one that is intent upon saving her, some even hate her. You'll find a lot of mystery surrounding her; her name is known apparently world wide and many rumors and speculations are going around about her no one really quite knows why she is so important to the King, excpet the King (obviously) and his closest and most loyal servant Abelia.

If you are an Anime fan then this should be at least viewed if not in your library. All three are wonderfully set with 13 episodes that don't let up or fill between. It's kinda like a 13 part OVA. I would highly recommend this for fans of Princess Mononoke, Vampire Hunter D/bloodlust. Young audiences may not be suitable for the violent/graphic/realistic nature of some themes and instances and these instances and themes may not even interest young audiences to begin with. It is a movie about emotions, and they can be heavy at times. I quickly added this to my library, give it a rent in the least. There are many more amazing things i could say about this film, but i'd probably give it all away (it doens't have any Sixth Sense style surprises though).

Everyone i know of that has seen it has loved it. It'd adorable and powerful. And they all loved Abelia just as much as they loved Sara

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Classic Anime, but not Cowboy Bebop
Review: It's funny, there's good action sequences, the plot is a little contrived and the dialogue is bad at times... actually unrealistic. But hey!! It scores better than robotech, ronin warriors or any of the other classic stuff. It's par. Right about where Outlaw star would be on the cheese meter, but there are some more mature things going on. Rated 16+, there's implied rape, torture, animal mutilation... good stuff. Definately wath this in the Japanese version, because the dubbed dialogue is just awkward, even thought the voice acting sounds nice.

You should be able to look at the box and figure the rest out.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: incredibly slow & comical
Review: It's hard to feel compassion for the main character (Shu) when he is so incredibly dense and too optimistic. Perhaps that is the moral of the show, but I think it's just bad writing. The violence is painfully tame and the stupidity of Shu borderlines that of comedy. You almost wish that the world he's in should just be obliterated to save us from total boredom. Save your money and purchase a better collectible set. Trigun, Reign, even Berserk has more action and storyline than this waste of dvd.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: a tragic story one of the best anime
Review: Now and then, here and there is a very tragic story. This story is about a boy named shu who meets a strange girl,who is from the future. They get captured and get blown into the future. This story has many intersting characters such as a crazy king, a girl from america, a loyal lutinent, and two young boys who befriend the main character. This story has many tragic events like rape,little kids getting kidnapped from their villages to serve the crazy king,and also killing.


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