[NGTM-1R]

If you want obsessive character development, go watch Legend of the Galactic Heros.

Oh wait.

That still manages to be more action-y than .hack, despite being nicknamed Boring Germans In Space.

[Stormkeeper]

So Singapore has a Gundam Fiest, and I've just realised I've watched every single Gundam series, except the first!. Somehow it made me sad and depressed.

[Liberator]

I've always found Amuro to be a bratty self-absorbed little kidm which coupled with Noah Bright, the most inept and incompetent commanding officer in the history of Gundam.  At least with Kira you had the feeling that he was fighting because he had to, not because he wanted to.  Setsuna had a strength of purpose that absolutely mowed down any opposition.  Hell even Garod fought because there was no one else.  Amuro was a whiny little brat with a slightly overpower robot.

[Stormkeeper]

Iirc, Garrod Ran is considered one of the most skilled pilots simply because he's a natural and he handed multiple Newtypes their asses.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Well, to each his own, I guess. I enjoyed .hack//SIGN, can't say I wasn't a little surprised to find that there were... oh, two action scenes in the entire series, but that didn't matter to me. I can't tell you how refreshing it was to see a series that paid such a level of attention to the development and personalities of its characters... while it was undeniably slow-moving, this attention to detail is what made me like the series. The point of .hack// isn't to wow you with explosive fight scenes: the point is the characters and their interactions... when you come down to it, the heart of any story.

Now, you want action, try playing the games. Plenty of action there.

Well it's not that i need action per say. I just want characters to move. Not sit on a cliff and flap their lips. I don't know, lately it seems I've seen a lot of anime that uses what we in the business call "held cells". Meaning, they just use one drawing. Or in the case of a lot of animes, one drawing plus lip sync.

And it's not just .hack. I mean, in Naruto . . the characters move really well. It's slick animation. But they thing is you have to wait for them to move at all. They throw a punch, pause, and then they have these long boring internal monologues about so and so's chakra.
Or One piece. Lots of full body pans and flapping gums and little else. Even Ghost in the Shell, which many people seem to enjoy for some reason, the characters just sit there most of the show. Except, they don't even have lip sync. They've all got these telepathic brain implants or whatever so they don't move AT ALL. And quite honestly it's boring as hell. Just talking heads.

A friend once lent some . . . weird show, habba habba renmae or something about a bunch of angels that lived in some orphanage or something. And there wasn't any action, wasn't any apparent antagonist, just a lot of walking and talking but I didn't mind it because the characters actually moved around and interacted with their enivronment instead of these one-drawing body pans like One Piece.

That's why I tend to stick to older shows, like the most recent one I watched was Nadia of Blue Water which I picked up on DVD. Not the best series I've ever seen but it's certainly got its moments and it has lot of actual animation to boot.

[Ransom]

You might like Kure-nai, then. Very little action, but it's full of beautifully expressive animation.

It's also just a really nice little series with adorable characters and tight writing. High production values are always appreciated, though.

[Mongoose]

Well it's not that i need action per say. I just want characters to move. Not sit on a cliff and flap their lips. I don't know, lately it seems I've seen a lot of anime that uses what we in the business call "held cells". Meaning, they just use one drawing. Or in the case of a lot of animes, one drawing plus lip sync.

With all due respect, limited animation is one of the hallmarks of anime as a whole, going back to its earliest mainstream-product routes.  (See things like the original Astro-Boy and Gigangor for particularly notable early examples.)  Most anime series are created on budgets that Western animators would scoff at (and on very tight deadlines to boot), and as a result, especially in the case of series intended for mainstream broadcast, they're generally very focused on saving what budget they do have for particularly important moments and taking necessary shortcuts the rest of the time.  You mentioned both Naruto and One Piece, two very long-running series (particularly the latter) based on ongoing manga properties; both have examples of gorgeous animation sequences during particular fights (particularly in the climax of the original Naruto series, right before the near-endless filler started), but much of the rest of the content has to be comparatively static by necessity. (One Piece has actually markedly improved in its animation as it progressed; I haven't seen enough of Naruto to know how it evolved.) Even a presumably higher-budgeted show like GITS: SAC had to utilize static scenes frequently, though I'd argue that the gorgeous CGI blending and incredible fight sequences more than made up for them.  All of this, of course, also depends on the skill and whims of the series' directors.

In contrast, anime movies and OVAs (direct-to-video releases) tend to have a far higher per-minute budget than broadcast series, so their animation tends to be far more fluid and lacking in many of the shortcuts that their TV counterparts exhibit.  There are also shorter television series targeted to more niche arguments that seem to get a larger per-episode budget than more lengthy properties; Haibane Renmei, a fantastic show for many reasons, seems to have been one of those.

In my mind, I'm willing to forgive a series its visual shortcuts provided its storytelling and characterization compensate for them; I watch most of the titles I do primarly because of those elements as opposed to the visual aesthetic.  That doesn't mean that I won't call a series on looking like ass when it really shouldn't, though (see: hilarious budget shortcuts in the last few episodes of Evangelion).

[redsniper]

A friend once lent some . . . weird show, habba habba renmae or something about a bunch of angels that lived in some orphanage or something. And there wasn't any action, wasn't any apparent antagonist, just a lot of walking and talking...

I was about to rage...

...but I didn't mind it because the characters actually moved around and interacted with their enivronment instead of these one-drawing body pans like One Piece.

but then I saw this.

For a second there I thought your were going to badmouth Haibane Renmei.

[Ghostavo]

At first I thought that was going to be a cute boring anime, fortunatly I was wrong.

Unfortunatly it gave me nightmares on the very first episode.

[Spoon]

I am joining this thread late and didn't really bothered to read it all through. I just started barfing uncontrollably when I saw .hack written somewhere in these last few posts.

Anyway, I came here to recommend Starship operators
It's the most realistic space combat you'll ever see in anime.
Seriously. Go watch it.

[Dark Hunter]

Monster is now airing in English, every Monday. On Syfy Channel, for some reason, but whatever. First two episodes have aired, and it seems quite good. A bit slow-moving, but I think that's just because anyone who has read even the smallest plot synopsis or previews knows what happens in these first several episodes.

I've been wanting to see this one for a while, so this will be fun, I think.

[Akalabeth Angel]

With all due respect, limited animation is one of the hallmarks of anime as a whole, going back to its earliest mainstream-product routes.  (See things like the original Astro-Boy and Gigangor for particularly notable early examples.)  Most anime series are created on budgets that Western animators would scoff at (and on very tight deadlines to boot), and as a result, especially in the case of series intended for mainstream broadcast, they're generally very focused on saving what budget they do have for particularly important moments and taking necessary shortcuts the rest of the time.  see: hilarious budget shortcuts in the last few episodes of Evangelion).

I've watched Astroboy, I have the DVDs as a matter of fact (not the B&W ones). Compare Astroboy to say, Spiderman, Rocket Robin Hood or the Hanna Barbera cartoons and quite frankly the animation is slick. Astroboy and most older Japanese cartoons blow north american stuff out of the water (except the features). But now adays most anime I've seen on TV seems to be very little movement, while NA ones have upped their quality quite a bit.

There's nothing wrong with "cheats" and shortcuts, but when your whole show is one big damn shortcut I give up and turn the dumb thing off.

[Stormkeeper]

Monster is now airing in English, every Monday. On Syfy Channel, for some reason, but whatever. First two episodes have aired, and it seems quite good. A bit slow-moving, but I think that's just because anyone who has read even the smallest plot synopsis or previews knows what happens in these first several episodes.

I've been wanting to see this one for a while, so this will be fun, I think.

Monster freaks me out.

[Mongoose]

I've watched Astroboy, I have the DVDs as a matter of fact (not the B&W ones). Compare Astroboy to say, Spiderman, Rocket Robin Hood or the Hanna Barbera cartoons and quite frankly the animation is slick. Astroboy and most older Japanese cartoons blow north american stuff out of the water (except the features). But now adays most anime I've seen on TV seems to be very little movement, while NA ones have upped their quality quite a bit.

There's nothing wrong with "cheats" and shortcuts, but when your whole show is one big damn shortcut I give up and turn the dumb thing off.

I'm not sure which Astro-Boy series you're referring to (The one from this decade?  The one from the 80s?), but the one I'm talking about is the original 1960s black-and-white series.  And trust me, if you're complaining about too many animation shortcuts in today's series, be prepared for an eye-opener if you go back and watch that.  It makes Scooby-Doo look fluid.

And when you're talking about comparative animation quality across different time periods, it's also important to specify just what you're comparing, and also to take into account the general industry conditions at the time it was made.  Movies and OVAs (direct-to-video releases) almost always have a significantly higher per-minute animation budget than weekly television series, so the animation quality is correspondingly higher; this would explain why an OVA from the 80s is probably animated far more smoothly than your average shounen episode today.  Also, the 1980s marked a sort of "anime boom" connected with Japan's economic success, particularly in the case of OVAs, so all sorts of projects were getting a significant amount of money thrown at them; this period lasted to some extent into the mid-90s.  Compare that to today's market, in which a global recession coupled with declining home entertainment revenue (which is how anime actually makes its money) means that there are fewer series being made than just a few years ago, and less money in general to go around between them.  It's completely reasonable that certain series will get the short end of the stick.

In the end, I'm probably not going to watch a show if it looks like complete ass, but I'm willing to forgive a decent amount of shortcuts if it has a compelling plot and good characters.  (But no pass for you, Eva. )