Forum - View topicANNCast - Revenge of the 80s: It's All In The Reflexes
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DavidShallcross
 Posts: 1008 |
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And here I was figuring it was a reference to Big Trouble in Little China! |
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Just Passing Through
Posts: 277 |
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You win! Shamefacedly lurks in the corner after getting it wrong. Tron was "It's all in the wrists" |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2568 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I find it interesting that Daryl had to call me out on including Metal Armor Dragonar on my list, but it really comes down to this: Looking back on 80s anime, I wanted to have this list be made up of titles that I have seen all of, and I realised that I haven't seen many 80s anime in their entirety. That said, I do prefer Dragonar over the Gundams of the decade mainly because I found it easier to get into, it had more likeable characters (I'll take the Dragonar cast over the Zeta crew and even the ZZ crew any day, though Judeau Ashta is fun to watch), and the story wasn't anywhere as convoluted as Gundam usually got, not to mention it had a sense of hope for the future to it that Zeta Gundam rarely had without being as purposefully ridiculous as Gundam ZZ. Granted, I did highly enjoy Gundam 0080, but if I had to choose I would still put Dragonar over 0080. Finally, my personal favorite Gundams are from the 90s, which probably says it all. It's not just because I'm trying to stay accurate to my blog's name, Daryl.
As for Arion, I have to disagree with Justin over Arion, as I liked how fast-paced and continually-moving the story was. I got the feeling that the movie was covering the entire 5-volume manga, and since Yoshikazu Yasuhiko directed the movie it was able to keep its focus intact. I found Arion very enjoyable in the end, and that's why I included it in the end. But, like Daryl admitted for himself, I can't keep a 100% stuck list and I personally hate putting stuff into numbered lists, so these three titles could always be replaced with other titles at any time and likely will as I slowly continue to watch 80s anime. Of course, if I didn't put that self-imposed restriction of "only include fully-watched titles" on my list, it would have ended up different; more than likely it would be something more like Fist of the North Star TV (I've seen the first two Discotek boxsets so far), Legend of the Galactic Heroes (only saw 5 episodes but loved what I saw), & Ashita no Joe 2 (again, only saw a small portion but I loved what I saw). All I can say is that 80s anime is not my forte, hence why my list came out the way it did; I do have to see a lot more from the 80s, & thankfully Discotek will be helping me do so in the future. My 90s and 00s lists will be much more understandable, not to mention harder for me to reduce into only three choices each. |
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bravetailor
Posts: 817 |
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The 80s were a pretty interesting time, and what you say here is mostly correct, but I've found that in many ways the women in 80s animation--even the male appealing ones--were sometimes both more AND less progressive than in today's supposedly more "enlightened" era. On a sidenote--watching the old Dirty Pairs, I'm really really surprised how well they hold up to today's gender politics, and compared to today's entertainment--both East and West--in general. The funny thing is that they weren't even trying to push any agenda with the Dirty Pair, it was just supposed to be some lighthearted adventures of two scantily clad women, which wouldn't seem at all progressive in concept. But somehow, it quietly is. |
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neocloud9
 Posts: 1178 Location: Atlanta, GA |
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First time I ever heard of Saint Seiya was from one of my fujoshi buddies in high school, haha. I don't get it either.
Man, that Wings of Honneamise sounds just heinous. What the hell point do you think they were trying to make with a scene like that? |
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bravetailor
Posts: 817 |
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My reading is that it was supposed to be the absolute low point for Shiro, and that the film suggested that in a larger symbolic sense, mankind had to overcome its baser instincts in order to reach a higher level. The problem is that they probably didn't communicate Shiro's emotional slide as well as they could have at that point. I think Requinni's reaction the morning after-- while not crowd pleasing--was absolutely believable. It's supposed to be shocking, though perhaps not on the level of say, Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs. 
Wings of Honneamiase has never been about pleasing the mainstream crowd though, it was a self conciously "Arty" film with a capital A. The typical concerns of crafting a "likeable" protagonist the audience could "root for" probably wasn't of primary concern to the staff. I think Carl Horn can (and has) written a more insightful analysis about Wings of Honneamise than anyone online, so it would've been great if they could have asked him about it a few weeks ago on that podcast. All that said, Wings of Honneamise is an important and thoughtful film meant to be discussed and parsed on more than a superficial level. There are very few anime films that have tried to follow up on its themes...off the top of my head, only Sky Crawlers has attempted to broach similar topics, but it's not nearly as densely layered. |
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Veers
 Posts: 1197 Location: Texas |
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I've seen some of the things discussed here but not many of them. Guess I have a good excuse now to get caught up!
Did anyone write down the lists? It'd be nice to have them for reference... |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8467 Location: Penguinopolis |
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Many of my favorite anime are from the eighties.
You should definitely finish Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Zac. It is so worth it. Definitely my favorite 80s anime, and my second favorite anime of all time. I never thought of Mobile Suit Gundam, either the TV series or movies, was anything tactics-heavy. For most of it it's a lot of random battling, especially the TV series. LoGH is the show with tactics. But I would definitely consider the Gundam movies favorites of mine and I think they are very compelling. I agree with the notion that while Patlabor and its movies are great, Patlabor 2 is the best Patlabor movie due to it being about the best characters (Gotoh and Nagumo). I don't think the opinion of Zeta Gundam has taken a 180 at all. It's still the most popular Gundam series in Japan and still has plenty of fans over here. There are a lot more detractors of it nowadays than before, but that's a loud minority. "That scene" in WoH was certainly unpleasant, and a bit too far, but I don't believe it ruins the movie at all. It's still a brilliant film |
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nightjuan
 Posts: 1473 |
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I'm not much of a fan of making top ten lists, personally speaking, but it's always a lot of fun to hear such different perspectives on anime.
Curiously enough, I didn't watch the Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy until after getting through Zeta Gundam and, needless to say, the hype for the latter was definitely astronomical even as late as the early 2000s. I still like that show -even with its multiple flaws- but in retrospect, the MSG films do have a more likable cast of characters and don't really suffer from the sort of backlash that makes blindly recommending something like Zeta rather unfeasible these days. On a different but related note, I've always found the early Gundam titles to be very interesting source material in order to study just how thin the line dividing "Super" and "Real" robots actually was, from a historical perspective, and how both categories have gradually come to rely on a lot of arbitrary distinctions. Legend of the Galactic Heroes needs no introduction by now, to say the least, but it's easily one of my favorite anime titles of all time, not just this or that specific decade. It's always nice to know that the series is slowly but surely getting more recognition around these circles. Anyone who wants to see how a well-written sci-fi anime can handle quite a few interesting subjects from the fields of politics and warfare should try to give it a chance. I'd say Macross DYRL does work quite a bit better when you can contextualize it as just an alternate version of the TV show, for better or for worse, but if you're not predisposed towards 80s nostalgia then, yes, it's probably going to be difficult to accept the main concept and all of its cheesy ramifications. Saint Seiya was so successful around the world because it combined pretty boys with a healthy dose of violence and death as well as all the classic shounen principles (ie: the stubbornness to fight against all odds, friendship, redemption, sacrifice, etc.), wrapping it all up in a pseudo-mythological coat of paint that gave the whole thing a certain sense of mysticism. It definitely appealed to a lot of people -myself included- from both genders back in the day. That said, I eventually lost interest because the formula does tend to get extremely repetitive and the rest of the show's flaws don't exactly help. I'd argue that only the excellent soundtrack holds up, regardless of my disillusion with the material. By the way...if you think the anime character designs look ugly, then the original manga designs by Masami Kurumada must be a true abomination, since the late Shingo Araki did a lot to clean those up for animation. |
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ljaesch
Posts: 299 Location: Enumclaw, WA |
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Zac: That disclaimer... ummm... thanks for ruining one of my favorite songs.
 Seriously, though, after hearing that, I'd recommend not giving up your day job.
Daryl: Loved the Jem and the Holograms reference. As the founder of the Truly Outrageous! Jem Mailing List, I approve!  The timing of that reference is kind of funny for me, too, since I just finished spending the past couple of weeks re-watching all 65 episodes of the series.
"Macross: Do You Remember Love": I haven't seen this, but I have seen the original Macross anime series. I love the Macross series, going all the way back to when I first saw it as part of Robotech when I was a kid. Yes, I am an "old timer" (I just turned 37 last week), so I admit that I see this series through lenses of nostalgia. "Mobile Suit Gundam": I haven't seen the movies yet, but I have seen the first half of the original anime series. What I've seen of the first anime series is, overall, more kid-oriented. I personally found the three little refugee kids rather annoying, and thought that for the most part, they didn't really add much. I have to say that that the anime series takes a little while to get going. By the time I finished the first box set for the series, I thought the series had started to find its footing and I found the story to be a little more interesting. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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Although I cannot escape the fear that this will draw unwanted controversy, I believe that the scene in question is, within even the decade under current consideration, a number of degrees below the most shocking misdoings to have been animated. It is natural for statements regarding "that scene" to feature in our discussions of the film, but no more so than the numerous other sequences in virtue of which Honneamise is a noteworthy work. |
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skafreak51
 Posts: 212 |
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I loved listening to this. Sadly I've probably only seen maybe one or two things mentioned lol.
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GATSU
Posts: 15358 |
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brave: I think they wanted Honneamise to be a success, but they ended up being arty, because they overestimated the audience for the film, because of the bubble. I know Carl was saying WOH made its money back eventually, but no company, even back then, when they could write off these losses more easily, wants to wait over five years to break even. I'm just surprised Gainax had something new the very next year, in the form of Gunbuster. But my guess is they used Gunbuster as a compromise to sell Honneamise. That is, they promised to produce "mecha anime 1,000,000" in exchange for their "dream project".
They're probably still pissed that most Gainax fans prefer Gunbuster over Honneamise, too.  But then Gunbuster actually looks like it was planned. To me, Honneamise comes off like some of the best talents at the time forced to carry a flimsy story which probably was written on the go. They no doubt tried to make it as interesting as they could, but it was DOA.
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Anime World Order
 Posts: 389 Location: Florida |
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For those so inclined, here is the link to our interview with Mr. Ishiguro from 2008. Also, here is the link to the press conference with Noboru Ishiguro, Masao Maruyama, Yukio Kikukawa, and Hidenori Matsubara.
While I'm at it, I suppose I ought to mention that if anything on the Top 10 lists sounded interesting, I've done longer length podcasts that you can listen to if you check our previous episodes. As Tim points out, the downside to everything being easy and trivial to obtain is that there's little remaining drive or incentive to "go the extra mile." But the upside to everything being so easy to get is that all these wonderful things which you may have never heard of is now perfectly within one's grasp to obtain, and are no harder to acquire than the very shows you're currently watching.
But we don't need to ask him what he thinks about it. Like you said, it's online. I can read most everything Carl wrote on the subject since 1990 right now thanks to Google. (Also, some of it's written over here, when we reviewed it.) It's easy to forget that once upon a time, there was no portal to the rest of the Internet like what we've got now. Either way, you'll be hearing some more thoughts on Honneamise from people sooner than you think...
You're misunderstanding the greater context of what I was getting at. When I spoke of Z Gundam's status in the past, I meant that in with regards to American anime fans overall. Once upon a time, Zeta Gundam and Char's Counterattack were big deals to anime fans the way that Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero are now, or Fullmetal Alchemist and Haruhi Suzumiya were in recent memory. But today, Zeta is only really praised by avowed diehard mecha anime fans, typically within the confines of dedicated mecha anime-specific communities. In 2012, THAT is "a loud minority."
All of these are solid, worth watching, and could have potentially gotten a mention from me.
This is the only justification I am ready to accept regarding why Metal Armor Dragonar would be considered one of your top favorites of the decade. Like I said: if the rest of the show lived up to the stellar opening credits sequence (both of them), I would be right there with you. But Dragonar along with like, Record of Lodoss War TV probably hold the all-time record for "phenomenal opening to a show that doesn't really warrant it." I'm not saying Dragonar is a BAD show (which I would say for the non-SD segments of Lodoss TV), but I am saying that in the grand scheme of things it's "decent."
I and my colleagues have made similar observations in Otaku USA (as well as on the podcast, both for Project EDEN and more recently the TV series), so I'm glad that it's not exactly that uncommon a train of thought. Personally, I always prefer when things are just "quietly" progressive in concept as opposed to making a big deal out of the fact that something is different from "the norm." It doesn't mean I dislike things that don't go that direction--heck, I'm all about The Rose of Versailles--but if nobody bats an eye the implication is "this sort of thing is perfectly normal."
To be honest, wearing them all at once probably means that by the time you layer on all of the Holograms' face paint along with the Misfits and Stingers, you just end up looking like Baron Samedi. Or at the very least, like how Nicolas Cage looked when filming Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Strong contender for film of the year, that. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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I think the idea that DYRL is the domain of the old-timer is quite off, my view is that being a Macross fan more so than being an old anime fan will lead you love that movie. That's how I watched it, for the first time in 2008 as a preparation for Macross Frontier, and I loved it dearly even before I started heavily watching things from that period. So "no one under 20" isn't quite right, anyone can develop love for old old old anime as long as they have the correct mindset and fortitude. And it doesn't hurt that older shows are getting re-released on BluRay or remastered DVDs. Before then I had mostly only gone back as far as the late 80s for titles like Gunbuster. I can forgive DYRL for all of the stupid it presents in pacing and interaction because the film and its execution just press my buttons in such a fashion that few anime ever do. The Five Star Stories film is exactly the same thing, and I willing to bet that one's has not even be viewed by most fans of 80s anime. Or those who have just find it incomprehensible because you need the manga to explain the setting and characters. What's great is how perfectly alike the first FSS book and the film are, practically a verbatim adaptation, and yet viewing the film alone can be extremely off-putting without that grounding.
Then again, I am biased because since then, I've come to love a ton of older anime from that period, like Birth, Iczer-1, Gemnu Senki Leda, Area 88, Beautiful Dreamer, Time Stranger, Megazone 23 and others. It's kind of easy to that Zac isn't attuned to older anime, and would probably have a terrible time slogging through some 70s anime. I like things with a certain style, to where the film wants to achieve that style and emotion almost more than tell a story. Like if Birth had been more of the last few minutes as opposed to the entire bulk of it, it might also have been in my top spots. Cyber City Oedo 808, especially the third episode, and Bloodlust do the same thing again. The stories and characters are pathetic and shallow, but goddamn it's appealing to look at. Conversely, an anime with fantastic characters and story does not need the visuals to help the presentation, with Legend of the Galactic Heroes as a prime example. There's not much in the way of animation, and the art never tries to impress, but it never needs to. As for the entire 80s anime overall and thinking that younger fans won't get into it, that's not true. I see everyday fans that watch OVAs and movies older than themselves for the first time, and enjoy them. And it's good to foster that growth in anime fans so they can learn the dynamics and history of the medium. I think I've seen every single thing mentioned in this podcast, or just about. Last edited by walw6pK4Alo on Fri Mar 30, 2012 7:38 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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