> ...Heck, I don't even think heavy weights like "Akira" or "Ghost in the Shell" feature an abundance of what you
describe.
>
> ...
>
> Although the movie version didn't have any, um, comedy relief blobs, the magna the movie was based off of did.
(which is neither here nor there...)
>

Nope, it's not. The movie was so far removed from the manga (and it would have to be -- there's no way they
could have covered the entire thing in a movie, and the movie probably suffured because it tried to cram so much
in) and comparing the two media is sort of akward.

> I've been interested in expanding my library of anime, but it's a bit hard to find the more serious stuff out there. I
wish the anime sections at video stores were split up into drama/historical/horror/naughty tentacle/children's...

General rule of thumb: if Blockbuster rents it, it's probably crap. This isn't always true (I'm not gonna call "Ghost in
the Shell" or "Ninja Scroll" crap), but they tend to only rent out dubbed (almost inherently bad) and often
censored stuff. The best thing to do if you can is find a comic shop to rent from that carries subbed stuff (the one I
went to went out of business this summer... sigh) and buy stuff online. There's tons of places to get anime online at,
and often at good rates. If you've got a DVD player, then you can really get some nice buys (not having to buy a
bunch of tapes to see "Lodoss War" is keen.. I *need* a DVD player). Of course, the BEST deals are in fansubbed stuff, which often only cost you the price of shipping and a video tape. And while you may not always get the best picture/sound quality, you're gonna get to see stuff before it's released outside of Japan and also some good stuff that likely won't be anytime soon.

Stephen