| DerekL1963 wrote: | | 0.o The discussion isn't about the "larger cultural sense", nor ports, nor remasters - it's about retro gaming as it's usually and commonly defined, playing old games on original hardware. It's about getting as close as possible to apples-to-apples comparison with watching older anime. |
...since when is retro gaming limited to original hardware? That would be like claiming that watching older anime only counts if you dig it up on Laserdisc, or that you're only a fan of classical literature if you dig up a first edition of Dracula. The whole point of this discussion is people seeking out older content, not the form by which said content is delivered. Whether you're hoping your antique VCR doesn't eat your original Streamline cassette or streaming it on Netflix, Akira is still Akira.
| Quote: | | As above, the question isn't whether remakes and sequels exist, nor about whether or not there is awareness and appreciation. The question is whether or not people seek out the original material and watch it. |
People certainly do in the case of remakes or sequels of popular movies. It's for good reason that each new Star Wars re-release generates a ton of sales, no matter how much the more hardcore fans bemoan George Lucas's latest round of crapping all over his original work. Sales of the original Lord of the Rings novels absolutely skyrocketed upon their film adaptation's release. Hell, the modern anime industry is (much to my own chagrin) largely founded on this principle, with adaptations primarily serving to spur sales of the original work. I can guarantee you that the whole Ghostbusters 2016 kerfuffle resulted in a whole lot of people going back to watch the originals, no matter how they felt about the reboot.
| Quote: | | Since anime is a very niche fandom, not a cultural phenomenon, that alone answers your question. You're (once again) comparing apples to the thing least like apples you can image. To make your arguments work, you moved the goal posts well beyond the scope of the discussion. |
Of course we're a niche fandom, but that doesn't excuse the question of why we don't act similarly within our own niche. We have our own cultural history and shared language, so though the scale is far smaller than more mainstream fandoms, the issues at hand remain the same.
Honestly I wonder if perhaps the main answer to the original question is that older anime works just aren't nearly as accessible as older works in other media. You can flip on a random cable channel and see syndicated reruns of popular movies at almost any hour of the day. The juggernaut that is Netflix has a massive amount of back-catalog titles. Bookstores perpetually carry pretty much every long-term popular work you can think of, or else you can just snag them all for your Kindle. But in the anime world, even if a particular classic title happens to still be in print physically, it's most likely not available streaming, and it's not in any sort of place of prominence where a newer fan would happen to stumble across it.
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| Top Gun wrote: | | I agree with leafy sea dragon that a lot of it probably has to do with the huge number of teens in anime fandom, which brings with it both an inherent peer pressure to like what's popular and a lack of perspective on what's available. Maybe it's something that does take a few years' worth of growing to happen, at which point in time many of them aren't really into the medium anymore. I know for myself, I only got into anime when I was in college, and a lot of what I was watching then on [adult swim] were reruns of shows that were already several years old, so I don't remember ever batting an eye at the age of the series I saw. |
I should say that much of my anime has always been what makes it onto American TV, simply because that's the easiest means to consume anime for me. As a result, I never cared if something is dated or not either. But it is undeniable how very strong the need to feel caught up with the others are with anime and manga. You can see it in how Viz loses out a bunch to speed scanlators because the scanlators can get them out on Wednesday or Thursday while Viz has to wait until the following Monday, and by then the discussions in the schoolyard or college campus has always moved on to something else.
| Top Gun wrote: | Maybe movies offer the best examples of all: franchises like Star Wars or Indiana Jones or the classic Disney canon flat-out transcended their medium to become absolute cultural touchstones. Parents who saw them when they were young showed them to their kids, and those kids are probably showing them to their kids in turn, and there's no big outcry over their age. Kids born in 2010 are still shocked when Darth Vader reveals his true identity, or still fall in love with Cinderella or Bambi or The Lion King, and they're not whining about how old what they're watching is. (And at least with Star Wars and Disney, they're still getting their parents to buy metric crap-tons of merchandise!) So where is this with anime? Do we really have anything that's been passed down like this between generations of fans, that people who started watching last year embrace as much as those who first saw it thirty years ago? I honestly can't think of anything like that, and on some level I find that extremely sad. |
Which reminds me: This used to be the case with western television, with TV shows passed down from generation to generation, but not anymore. The only remaining cross-generational American TV shows on nowadays are The Simpsons, South Park, and Tom and Jerry. (One can also argue SpongeBob SquarePants, as that's been around for about 15 years, but it comes across to me more as inherited without actually being shared: That is, each successive generation of kids starts watching SpongeBob as the previous generation disowns it.) Brands that withstood the test of time like Mickey Mouse, Looney Tunes, Sesame Street, and The Flintstones, over the past decade or so, have become irrelevant. I definitely do sense a whole "I don't want to watch what my parents watched" vibe with television that I simply do not see with movies. The Scooby-Doo shows do remain culturally relevant though, so maybe it's a case of competent brand management in the face of greatly increased competition in the 21st century.
| DerekL1963 wrote: | | 0.o The discussion isn't about the "larger cultural sense", nor ports, nor remasters - it's about retro gaming as it's usually and commonly defined, playing old games on original hardware. It's about getting as close as possible to apples-to-apples comparison with watching older anime. |
Does that actually happen? I always definited retro gaming as a general interest in video games of the past, particularly those of the 80's and 90's. Nearly everyone I've met who fits these criteria either play ports of older games on recent consoles or computers, or they play them on emulators. It is exceedingly difficult to play these games on their original systems (between availability of stably working hardware and compatibility with modern TVs or availability of older TVs), if outright impossible.
This is the first time I've ever seen retro gaming have the additional criterium of having to be played on a machine they were originally meant for. I don't think it compares, because the equivalent would be watching an anime on a VHS tape, Laserdisc, Betamax tape, or, before home video became popular, on TV broadcasting equipment. If someone is watching, say, Yu Yu Hakusho on a streaming service, I think that counts as interest in an older series, and it'd definitely be the equivalent of playing Mario Kart 64 on the Wii U.
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