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Shelf Life - Dirty Dancing

erinfinnegan wrote:

I'd be interested in hearing what you thought of the show's gender politics. Kei and Yuri are sort of like OL's, and it's implied in the show that if either of them get married they'll have to quite their job(s) and it will be the end of the Dirty Pair.

Well, I'll see whether I can get it or not. But I do have to say, it sounds like another manifestation of what I call the Japanese Imagination Handicap. Most scifi shows can imagine a world where racism is a thing of the past, but women being equal to men? *gasp!* I mean, there are exceptions (see: GitS:SAC 2nd Gig) but it's sort of a pain to have a masterpiece like, say, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, be so dang male-dominated. It's 1000+ years in the future, why aren't more women in charge of things?!?!

GrilledEelHamatsu wrote:

How would you have access to it, if it wasn't availible for import and since at the time during the late 80s and early 90s no fansubs existed for it?(From what I recall there were few fansubs that were ever made for it and the first one didn't even come into existance until around 1997!).

If they're like my husband, they probably watched it raw. He saw all of Dirty Pair at his local anime club on 4th generation VHS tapes, traded by Americans with Japanese pen pals. Almost no one at his anime club spoke Japanese, but sometimes someone would translate a little bit of the dialog on the fly. That's how American fans used to watch things pre-fansub.

GrilledEelHamatsu wrote:

How would you have access to it, if it wasn't availible for import and since at the time during the late 80s and early 90s no fansubs existed for it?(From what I recall there were few fansubs that were ever made for it and the first one didn't even come into existance until around 1997!).

If they're like my husband, they probably watched it raw. He saw all of Dirty Pair at his local anime club on 4th generation VHS tapes, traded by Americans with Japanese pen pals. Almost no one at his anime club spoke Japanese, but sometimes someone would translate a little bit of the dialog on the fly. That's how American fans used to watch things pre-fansub.

erinfinnegan wrote:

GrilledEelHamatsu wrote: How would you have access to it, if it wasn't availible for import and since at the time during the late 80s and early 90s no fansubs existed for it?(From what I recall there were few fansubs that were ever made for it and the first one didn't even come into existance until around 1997!). If they're like my husband, they probably watched it raw. He saw all of Dirty Pair at his local anime club on 4th generation VHS tapes, traded by Americans with Japanese pen pals. Almost no one at his anime club spoke Japanese, but sometimes someone would translate a little bit of the dialog on the fly. That's how American fans used to watch things pre-fansub.

I still got them all on VHS during 89-90. Have the movie comics too. http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/2047/101116000622.jpg
Back In 1994.

How did you obtain them?

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It's a show about two women (based on female wrestlers) who work as bounty hunters and blow up anything that gets in their way. How does it sound like a manifestation of Japanese Imagination Handicap?

Also, I'd point out that just because we can imagine a world where everybody is equal and we all sing kumbiya and dance into the sunset doesn't mean it's likely to happen. This in no way excuses lazy or misogynist writing, of course, but I'd like to read more SF that deals with how frictions between genders and ethnicities will be affected by scientific and technological advances, beyond simply assuming they'll disappear. (Except for the sub-genre of super feminist SF where women fleeing the patriarchy establish their own planet where they all become lesbians and clone new babies - all girls, of course. Important, maybe, but not really my cup of tea.) And remember, the second season of GitS:SAC had empowered women and all that jazz, bu it also had (for me) disturbingly ethno-centric nationalism, too.

BTW, is your husband older than you or is he the same age? Just asking since most of those "Anime Clubs" came into existance in the 80s.

We were but the deal between Toonami and NFL Rush fell through and only five very heavy edited dub episodes were streamed on Toonami's Jetstream. No word if Sentai will dub the episodes as they have been doing sub only.

How did you obtain them?

I can't speak for how they obtained them, but a quick eBay search turned up several copies of various volumes in the series for around $1 to $2 each. Looks like getting a complete set would be both pretty easy and cheap, even now.

GrilledEelHamatsu wrote:

BTW, is your husband older than you or is he the same age? Just asking since most of those "Anime Clubs" came into existance in the 80s.

Never ask a lady's age! But seriously he's like two years older than me, and would've attended what he called "AWOL" sometime between 1989 and 1994. You can read more about his beardo anime clubs here and here. Noah is caught on tape in this video, although he was like 12-14 and the video predates his beard.

I've never been interested in Dirty Pair. I think the vaguely pornographic name has something to do with it. Also with the fact that it looks completely retarded.

Golgo 13: is this actually good, or is it good in a Daryl Surat "so terrible it's fun" kind of way?