Forum - View topicTo observe without the prism of nostalgia.
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nobahn
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This posting is inspired by this thread.
I cannot reflect upon Robotech without being being affected by the nostalgia factor. Therefore, I ask the following question: If -- and only if -- you were not exposed to this show as a child, then will you please relate exactly how the show strikes you? I keep coming across the opinion that Robotech is a desecration of The Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, and I honestly do not know just what to think. (Again, it is the nostalgia factor.) Last edited by nobahn on Fri Sep 14, 2012 2:31 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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zawa113
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I probably first watched Robotech around...late summer after 10th grade maybe? At that point, I had been into anime for 4ish years maybe? I mean, I guess I was still a kid in that I was under 18, but it's by no means a show that got me into anime either. Anyway, I had found the first 4 singles of the fuzzy 80s boradcast version at a used store (and seeing how it was 24 eps, I assumed it was a full series, clearly unaware it was the whole thing, but a friend actually had the Protoculture collection, so he lent the rest to me). So I guess you could say I was not nostalgia influenced as I was well into my fandom and was at least 15 I guess. I also never saw it on Toonami, I didn't get cable until after it was off Toonami.
At first, the graphics were...weird, kinda ugly, but they weren't actually enough to stop me from watching by any means. I quickly found myself enjoying the series and was beyond pissed to learn that 24 eps was not the whole thing. Offhand, I mentioned it around my friends and the one guy goes "sure, I'll lend you the rest", and while I certainly liked Macross the most, I still pretty much ate up the entire series. I then purposely got the 80s Broadcast (fuzzy VHS quality) version upon determining that the fight with Max and Miriya in the park only looked worse cleaned up, lol. So I did watch the series several times throughout the years. Then, when ADV released the Southern Cross/Mospeada double pack, I got it for xmas that year....and then promptly didn't watch it for like 3 years at least. I didn't get their Macross set because...I dunno, I did finally get the AnimEigo set in 2011 when the Robotech store had a bunch of them for like $60 after shipping (I was 22 then I think?) I think I didn't get ADV's Macross set because I honestly though that the Robotech version was just fine as is, but had heard the other two series (namely SC) were changed the most, so I was curious. So I wasn't exposed to the original uncut unsubbed versions until my 20s. I do think that watching Robotech first is a good idea though, as I don't think it dances on a corpse of Macross at all. Upon finally seeing Macross for the first time, it was like falling in love with the Macross Saga all over again (with an added baby tossing scene). But I didn't look back at Robotech and go "I can't believe I liked that!", I still really like the dub and I think some of the music choices are more exciting. I'm actually rather tied as to which version I like better honestly. But if I had seen Macross first, I'm not 100% sure how I'd be on Robotech. I think since the vast majority of it is so intact (including character deaths) that I wouldn't be raging against it, but I'm also not a purist. So long as you're not changing how the characters act or interact, I'm unlikely to complain. Macross was mostly unchanged storywise, but the only complaint I can really think of is the changing of the definition of the word "Protoculture", the only thing I recall thinking "Why did Robotech change that?" so I think that's the only real weakness in the adaptation. At least it uses the term internally consistently though. For Mospeada, I vastly prefer Robotech, Annie/Mint is far less annoying in English and since most everything but names and unimportant details stayed the same for Robotech, but the music was far improved, I think Robotech is the superior product on Mospeada. I doubt I'll watch my sub only set ever again when I have my Robotech set right there (but since it was part of a double pack and I'm a crazed collector on this one, I'm sure as hell keeping it) Southern Cross though....well the first 10 or so eps are the same, but I remembered going "why doesn't Zor (meaning Seifriet) have spoiler[a triumvirate]?" and yeah, SC did answer that. I did prefer Robotech's music, but since SC had the most changes, that's the only one where I do prefer the original. At the end of the day though, Robotech is still a damn good series, I had no idea what to expect from this old 80s series I got used for cheap that, when I first stuck it in, looked kinda ugly by today's standards, but I was blown away by the story, pacing, characters, everything, and if my ADD nephew didn't find the Last Airbender live action movie superior to the TV show  I'd totally want to show him Robotech. And I'm actually considering double dipping for the A&E set, I hear it has all these juicy juicy extras :3 I think anyone who hates it purely on the basis that it's not Macross is full of it (simply liking Macross more is fine, I'm talking about people who throw a temper tantrum because Hikaru is now called Rick kind of people, people who pretend there is no good in Robotech whatsoever kind of people who can't even appreciate it historically)
So, not 100% sure if this counts as "exposed to as a child" for me, but no, not a gateway drug and I didn't get the other half until I was a reasonable adult, and heck, I'm tied on Macross, and I definitely prefer NG to Mospeada. Actually, I keep having to look online myself to make sure other people like my gateway drugs: Digimon and Outlaw Star, lol, so I get where you're coming from. |
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EricJ
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I actually WASN'T exposed to the show as a child, and I liked it. 
Oh, I was exposed, I just wasn't paying attention--See, in 1984, we had Robotech, Star Blazers and Voltron all over the danged place, and anything with big eyes and hair where the lips didn't exactly match was considered "cheap", for any of the more backwater UHF stations that couldn't afford to get He-Man or the Thundercats. Seemed like it was only the bargain-basement local stations that got "that foreign robot crap", which looked assembly-lined, indistinguishable from each other, and "wasn't fooling anybody". (I remember in freshman college, getting into a discussion with one of the fervent proto-anime fans who raved that the new robot-fleet shows coming out of Japan was better than what the US had with "all that Hanna-Barbera Flintstones stuff"....Okay, pal, nobody disses the 'Stones around me and gets away with it.  )
It wasn't until I was well into anime, and could tell an old-school 80's classic from a "current" 90's series, that I went back to look it up just to find out what all these "Minmei" and "Boyfriend is a pilot" references were all about. Looked up some of the Harmony Gold US dubs on VHS, and caught that redubbed "Do You Remember Bionoids" thing on PD tape, and was hooked. Voltron or Star Blazers might've seemed generic, but there was just something affectionately goofy about Macross. Giant aliens who go all gushy hearing music for the first time....Who knew our first encounter with an interstellar enemy would turn out to be Blue Meanies? 
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nobahn
Subscriber Posts: 5120 |
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classicalzawa--
It is interesting that you should compare the Robotech OST with the other OSTs. With the exception of the Lynn Minmei song (even as a child I thought that that it was corny), I preferred the Robotech OST to the Macross OST. (Again, I could not tell if it was the nostalgia factor playing a role.) Last edited by nobahn on Thu Sep 13, 2012 11:23 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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hyogacisne
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There is some nostalgia. I usually dream to fly the Roy Fokker varitech. But is something curious, even after years cience couldn't design a varitech or products with the same especifications, so that keeps the dream. Mixture of nostalgia and fantasies, but we are all made of fantasys some smaller, same bigger same more "real?". But they keep us happy. Yesterday I though was a stupid with nostalgia, now I thint that is what I'm made, an otaku.
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EricJ
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Those weren't my gateway drugs, but I always liked to use Outlaw Star as a more upbeat "chaser" to combat the damaging effects of recommending Cowboy Bebop to newbies--Same action, less noir.
I'll have to ask, though, what people ever saw in Digimon, besides the fact that it was on, and that Fox was proud they owned something to compete with Warner... It kept thinking it was a real show, did it actually HAVE anything to it besides being the why-pay-more "Pokemon Goodwill Games"? 
(And before anyone asks, I watched Pokemon because the imitators didn't have Team Rocket.) |
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TitanXL
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The Digimon franchise is one of the more entertaining proxy battle shows out there; definitely in the Top 5. The characters are well developed, the story is entertaining and thoughtful, and it has some amazing music by some of my favorite composers like Wada Kouji and AiM. It's definitely a very well loved and iconic series. All of the series are pretty good and offer their own unique spin on the franchise (yeah, even Savers). Though for the record, Digimon predates Pocket Monsters. A lot of proxy battle monster franchises did. Pocket Monsters is just the one that struck gold. |
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Soundmonkey44
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I've observed older series without the prism of nostalgia, like ones I never initially saw as a kid, and honestly I still prefer 80's -90's anime over a lot of modern stuff, even if it is just as cheesy overall. Thats just my personal preference.
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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Digimon is awesome. I loved it when I was young and I plan to buy the DVD release we just got. I'm also in the middle of watching the Tamers season and while I'm not loving it (I still miss the Adventures cast), it's definitely fun. It has great characters and interesting stories and was far more engaging to me than Pokemon, which I never got into.
I think the main thing that hurts some of these shows though is getting the chance to see the original version. I also grew up on Sailor Moon and adored it but the Japanese version is so much better that it makes it a little harder to view my early memories fondly. I certainly would not be caught dead watching the dub now (except when showing it to Japanese exchange students at my university, who were very amused). |
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DomonX2
 Posts: 232 Location: Neo Toronto, Neo Canada |
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You are incorrect. Pokemon started on February 27, 1996, while the Digimon series started in June 26, 1997. The Pokemon animated cartoon started April 1, 1997, 2 months before Digimon as a WHOLE. The Digimon animated cartoon started on March 7, 1999 and the movie a day before. You were way off kid. Oops! I guess, I meant DAY BEFORE!  Still better than XL, that's a fact.
Last edited by DomonX2 on Fri Sep 14, 2012 4:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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TitanXL
Posts: 4036 |
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That sounds like the best way to get over nostalgia. Watch the original version if you haven't, because they're always extremely different than the dubbed versions you saw as a kid. Digimon and Sailor Moon are great examples of a show being butchered in it's English adaption. You won't have any ties to the true version of the show, so you can judge it fairly off that.
Really? And Bandai's Tamagochi and Pocket Monsters came out the same year. To say it was just an 'imitation' is laughable. Especially when the Shin Megami Tensei series has been doing the monster battling thing before either of them. While other series may have been seen as 'rip offs' in the American market (it doesn't help when the English dubs of these tend to be marketed similar to the English 'Gotta Catch Em All Pokemon' thing), they're common as dirt in Japan and the concept dates back decades, and to say one is the 'real one' while others are imitations is a silly thing to say. |
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bravetailor
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Robotech overall would probably still strike me as a good show, though by today's standards of airing anime, obviously would prefer less edits and name changes.
I would put it on the same level as Shaman King in terms of anime adaptations for mainstream kids' TV. (For the record, I still like 4kids' Shaman King, and I watched the show when I was well into my late 20s, so as an adult I can still appreciate an edited version of an anime) I disagree with Classicalzawa in terms of the graphics in Robotech (as well as his opinion on Mospeada, but that's more a YMMV kind of thing). It seems to me that he watched Robotech at a far later date than I did (early to mid 80s) and believe me, all my childhood schoolfriends were in agreement that in its day Robotech sported some of the most attractive drawings on American TV during the 80s. SOME episodes look really bad today because of poorly directed and poorly animated episodes, but for the most part, the mecha designs and character designs still stand up well today if you watch some of the better directed episodes. But all that aside, the characters are believable and well rounded for the most part, and Robotech is faithful to those elements of the original Macross. And they didn't pussyfoot over Roy and Ben dying, they were dead and they flat out said they were dead. They didn't fall into another dimension or quit the army offscreen, never to appear again like so many other cartoons might still do today. Dead is dead. And there are still scenes of Misa/Lisa clearly drinking alcohol and getting drunk at a bar drowning in her sorrows. So it's still a pretty edgy show by today's TV standards. I concur with nbahn that the Robotech OST is more stirring to me than the Macross OST overall, though I like Mospeada's OST a little bit more than both. |
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DomonX2
Posts: 232 Location: Neo Toronto, Neo Canada |
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Digimon and Pokemon both suck as animated series, no matter what language you watch, especially Pokemon, which is the worse of the two. Play Pocket Monsters, not watch the inaccurate, stupid show(how the fudge can 'Rhydon' be beaten by 'Thunderbolt' in Generation I?). How the hell can Ghost attacks prior to Gen II, hit Psychic types? Satoshi(or Ash) is an idiot, who does things that no common sense trainer would do and so much more. I just hate it. It's ironic, because in Canada, Pokemon is our most popular Japanese cartoon and I grew up with it. Now, I love the games and hate most aspects about the cartoon(barring music). This is reverse nostalgia. |
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nobahn
Subscriber Posts: 5120 |
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Heh  . You should have participated in this poll.
Am I safe in assuming that you never saw Robotech? |
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TitanXL
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I find it funny how you're defending the first generation's terrible glitches. You should be happy the anime fixed the game's mistake of Ghost moves not working on Psychic, when they should. Not to mention Poison actually hurting Bug, rather than the other way around like the game mistakenly programmed by making Bug super effective against Poison. The game mechanics in general are pretty broken (then again these games were made in the early 90s and still follow pretty much the same formula with little in the way of change) and disliking something based on that principle seems like a fairly silly. The anime actually has the advantage of actually being able to choreograph fights and not be bound to the game mechanics. Allowing for some pretty nice and creative fights; like wall jumping up the side of building and using the terrain and environment to their advantage, or combining two moves together for a new effect and tag-teaming with other Pokemon. Not sure how you could hate that kind of stuff unless it's some kind of weird purism thing; would you rather they just sit in front of each other taking turns using attacks like a turn-based RPG? It sounds like you're still letting nostalgia cloud your judgement, just a different kind (love of the games, in this instance) |
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