Forum - View topic20 Years Ago: The Best Anime of 1998
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Ouran High School Dropout
 Posts: 440 Location: Somewhere in Massachusetts, USA |
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Let me start with CCS. It remains by far the longest anime I've ever stuck with--a testament to the entire production: writing, animation, music. That, and the fact that it was the first series I ever embraced that was subtitled-only (my attitudes on that topic have changed a lot since then!
 ). Among my sizable collection are two CCS production cels that I'll never part with!
As for the Bebob/Outlaw Star "debate", its really a non-starter for me. Both were and still remain favorites of my early days of real fandom. In fact, having recently re-watched Bebop, I think I appreciate it more now (let's see how well Outlaw Star fares on a rewatch today. BTW, I loved both enough to repurchase on Blu). Ah, Trigun...the timeless tale of a lovable, donut-scarfing doofus who's far deeper--and more tragic--than he seems at first blush. A nasty set of adversaries, an even worse big bad, and a great supporting cast of "friends" all make for a great show (one that led me to read the whole manga, very unusual for me). And Badlands Rumble was a welcome new journey with old friends. Lain left an indelible impression on me--my first real exposure to weapons-grade mind screw from the world of anime, more so even than Evangelion. I recall telling other fans that this was one show that demanded your undivided attention. There are still scenes that chill me, even after a decade or more since I watched it last. Princess Nine? Never was interested, despite some good press I remember at the time...just never been a fan of sports anime. And while I was a fan of the original Knight Hunters, I remember watching Gluhen and thinking, "what the &$*#! happened?" Gasaraki was also mentioned; I remember describing it to fans as "the thinking man's mecha show." And the less said about Ninja Resurrection, the better. |
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Shaterri
Posts: 173 |
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I know it's completely tangent to the article, but I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Masamune Shirow in this context here yet... |
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Shinigami-Seishou
 Posts: 123 Location: Traveling |
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1998 was the year I found anime, though Robotech was the first show I'd seen. The fact that you say most otaku today weren't even alive in 1998 scares the hell outta me. Lol, think time needs to slow down a little bit, oof.
One mention of a show, Karekano is a fantastic series for coming out in 1998. Now that I'm really looking at the entire span of the year...gotta say 1998 was a golden year. |
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1817 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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When has Shirow drawn underage girls in sexual situations? |
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Codeanime93
Posts: 599 |
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I actually watched Golgo 13: Queen Bee recently, wow was that a wildly violent and sex filled anime that unfortunately had a few nausea inducing style choices during the action scenes I remember. Also if you ever wanted to listen to the guy who voiced Frieza voice a nasty drug-dealing, manipulative pedophile political fixer guy watch it in Japanese. Dezaki also turns into near hentai at points due to the massive amounts of sex he shoves into it.
On a similar note, while I do respect the opinions on Initial D, I kind of think Darryl went massively overboard on his critique on it, but what do I know. Yes I remember the 3D cars and the cut out 2D people during the race scenes too, though the 3D cars did look a lot better than the 3D mechas from Pilot Candidate. 1998 was also the year of the truly terrible anime adaptation of Tekken that ADV released. The movie version of Gundam Wing Endless Waltz was also released that year as well. Tomino's Brain Powerd was also on that year too where Tomino decided to just fully open on a bunch of naked floating girls in his openings. Toei's Yu-Gi-Oh is sadly so forgotten and Toei has apparently buried it pretty much though I thought it was pretty good and darker than the Duel Monsters show which got stuck in a lot of mind numbing card battles. Listening to Megumi Ogata voice a frighteningly sadistic Yugi who straight up messes evil people up for life is rather entertaining for me (Yes I know it's truer to the manga). For instance the episode where he puts the mind screw on that watch thief is downright pure nightmare fuel. Last edited by Codeanime93 on Sat Apr 21, 2018 2:03 am; edited 1 time in total |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Basically, we remember 1998 as the year we all started getting serious about DVD. 
Of course, DVD didn't rocket into our national consciousness until '99-'00, after the DiVX Wars were over and it was safe for the software companies to come out of their foxholes and release titles--But it was the Pioneers and the Bandais who had product to sell, got it out on disk, and we could buy it subbed and dubbed at affordable prices and start watching it on a regular basis. Disk-starvation might've boosted the temporary reputation a show that hasn't since aged well, like Trigun, Lain or Initial D, that got most of their "followings" from our being able to find something to watch on disk, but the article is also correct: 1998 was also just a perfect storm of great mainstream Japanese TV series--back in the day when it was still proudly the biggest bit of demographic marketing on Japanese TV--and produced a few great classics for the right audiences they knew were watching. Bebop and Outlaw, apart from their spaceships and mercenaries, are sour apples and sweet oranges: One is dark posing noir, the other is comic-book action with a touch of comic relief. The only reason they're ever still compared to each other is our own starved '98 fandom for any regular series to watch, and our dinosaur-battles to see which one would "win" in a fight. Oh, and the fact that they, along with Tenchi and Trigun, were the first new series we could watch regularly on late-night Cartoon Network for free, didn't hurt any either. (I remember renting the Outlaw disk from my local brick-and-mortar, where most of the employees were just getting hooked on the new limited selection of titles too--They were still waiting to see it yet, and asked how it compared to Bebop; I said I preferred Outlaw for being "not as gratuitously depressing".  )
That's not to say we were hooked on CCS just to compare it to Sailor Moon, though--That one earned its own classic status, and still does. The animation, the music, the characters, the episodes, this was a show you showed someone if you wanted to hook them on anime immediately and for life. |
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trilaan
 Posts: 1054 Location: Texas |
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Trigun was my first major anime love. It's a great series though it doesn't come close to matching the manga version for me which is, legit, the greatest manga I have ever read. But, don't get me wrong, parts in both will have me bawling like a baby when I watch/read them. The emotional connection I formed with Vash runs deep. I'm getting that upcoming Figurama statue, too.
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4082 |
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Princess Nine is more about sexual politics than sports as its an entire series about one game between an all girls team and an all guys team. Taishou Baseball redid it as a period piece but it's just not as impactful seeing how it's preWWII.
1998 though? I'll have to search as I don't know it by year... Fancy Lala, there's one on my shelf that doesn't get talked about a lot. So moving on.... Bubblegum Crisis 2040? I like it more than Cowboy Bebop because it's got, you know, a plot. First series that taught me animation was more than... no, I've seen shows in the 80s and 90s that already taught me that. Battle Athletes Victory finished in 98. Great Kuroda/Kurata sports comedy series a year before they did Excel Saga. Lost Universe and Neo Ranga... I still don't have Cowboy Bebop or Lain or Outlaw Star as there are so many series I'd choose over them. The most I remember about Lain are the sound of a modem and shots of power lines and the most I remember about Bebop is being bored. Steam Detectives. At least with this one I know I'm one of its few advocates. Sole, only... same thing. So how about calling this article "The Most Popular Anime of 1998"? Best is just so.... Initial D, don't you think? |
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Graceful Nanami
Posts: 303 Location: United States |
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Not a huge fan of how a lot of this article was worded but a great read nevertheless.
1998 was a super special year for anime indeed. Everyone has their memories. Really too many fond ones to name. I will admit, though... I was a HUGE Weiss Kreuz fan. I was around 16 years old in 1998. IIRC, WK were my first VHS fansubs I ever obtained and I was obsessed; I remember almost every episode so vividly. It wasn't my first "real" anime but... something about getting those VHS tapes copied for me. Takehito Koyasu's brainchild is a strange animal. It's horrible in all the ways something CAN be horrible. But I didn't care back then. Even now, I look back on it fondly but can fully admit its hilariously bad and brimming with cringe. Gotta love all those seiyuu in that show, though. Full of vets. And the music is great. But... that's all I can say on the good side. Ah... haha. Epitome of nostalgia for me in the anime world. ...I still have all the DVDs and some of the fansubs for the OAVs (I still can't believe it was licensed and the dub is too hard to stomach but I digress). I have the spin off Gluhen TV series, too. I wonder if I could get through it without too much embarrasment... I feel so old. But that's nothing new. |
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timber
Posts: 132 |
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Certainly didn't pass unnoticed in France and Belgium: Canal+, one of the rare French speaking encrypted channels had started showing high quality anime movies and series at a time when local TV channels had drastically reduced the broadcast of the "violent" Japanese animation (caused mainly be a TV channel showing "Hokuto no Ken" in the middle of the Wednesday afternoon that was at the time basically prime time for kids). Anyway we were all asking for friends who had the Canal+ decoder to record the show for us. I recognize the story of each episode was either a hit or miss but was always done with style and great music. I enjoyed the show very much and that last episode, I give it 20 out of 10, and the final scene where spoiler[Spike turns his eyes to the skies, collapses on the stairs and the final ending "Blue" resound as if reflecting his final thoughts], I will never forget it. Last edited by timber on Sat Apr 21, 2018 8:30 am; edited 1 time in total |
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ThatMoonGuy
Posts: 364 |
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Somehow, I had forgotten Lain and Trigun were both from the same year. That's... uh. That's something. The show has some pretty experimental stuff but I somewhat feel like it's held back by the medium. I imagine that something along the lines of the Lain game works better for the concept of "exploring a world of disjointed information". Still, for what it is, Lain is damn good. The aura of strangeness and isolation, the blending of reality, the visuals and soundtrack, all coalescing to build a world just barely out there. And that's without going into the whole conceptual matter of it. The role of memory in the creation of self, alternate identities created by outside perception. All very prescient. I remember reading a lot about this show everywhere and going through all of Konaka's notes in his Alice06 site. Then I learnt the guy was the writer of my second favorite show (Digimon Tamers) and of quite a few other cool things. Suffice to say, I'm a pretty big fan of his.
Trigun was another show I particularly enjoyed both because how cool it was but also because how good it was at discussing pacifism. I mean, it's easy to make a story where the protagonist can be pacifistic since everyboy is just a misunderstood dork even if they were doing inhumane experiments to other creatures. But Trigun gos so far as to ask what happens when you try to be a pacifist while the rest of the world isn't. And then there's Bebop. 1998 sure was a good year, huh? |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11355 |
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Yes, Gluhen is just sad. There was some sort of rights dispute over the character designs, so that's why we got a sheared Yohji, Shuldig in suspenders, and other visual blasphemies. But I'm still a WK fangirl. It's like Koyasu read my mind and pulled out all the melodramatic tropes and tripe I grew up loving and slopped them all together into a wonderful hot mess. The Verbrechen & Strafe OVA might just be the best thing I've ever seen, it's so utterly shameless. I love WK both seriously and ironically, despite all its countless sins.
I also have a soft spot for Nazca, which nearly approaches Garzey's Wing levels of stupidity at times, but I still get a kick out of it, and it's colorful. As for the actual good series from that year, Cowboy Bebop was, is, and probably ever shall be the hands-down winner. Watching reruns on Toonami (with the censorship gone and the chroma restored so that poor Annie doesn't end up looking like she's in blackface), it still absolutely holds up in every respect. I also agree with Trigun as another banner series of that year. I can't say I'm surprised, but still a little sad that no one has yet mentioned Master Keaton, which earns the "master" in its title. It's kind of an odd duck, an action series without a lot of action, danger that doesn't seem all that dangerous, mysteries with slow burn solutions, and character drama with an unusual type of leading man. But every episode is ridiculously interesting in unexpected ways, and often educational to boot. Movie-wise, I like Jin-Roh - The Wolf Brigade, which is just stellar in every way, plus incredible animation that looks like rotoscoping but is actually not. It's impressive, and a good story too. I'll also give a shoutout to Nightwalker, which is far better than it ought to be. Despite wallowing in vampire cliches, it has some surprisingly affective stories to tell. 1998 was a damn fine year for anime. |
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animerican
Posts: 4 |
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I'm very happy you showed a little love for Princess Nine. I watched it on demand on the Anime Network on my cable provider. Me being a baseball fan, I gave it a look and I was pleasantly surprised. The character development was excellent, the baseball was pretty good, and did not have a lot of the typical fanservice tropes which was actually refreshing. They were just girls coming together trying to be the first all-girls team to make it to the national baseball tournament in Japan. It was nice to see their journey and what they did to achieve that. Plus, it gave you a great look at what high school baseball means in Japan. It feels like it is just as important as pro baseball. And the ending is something I would never have expected...
spoiler[The protagonist's boyfriend hits a walk-off home run off her(she was a pitcher).] I did not see that coming. So it didn't have a storybook ending. That was refreshing as well. I'm sure if the show went another season, I bet the girls would eventually win. But it was nice that they went with that choice in the end. So I'm just happy after 20 years that Princess Nine got a little love. Thanks. |
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Usagi-kun
 Posts: 877 Location: Nashville, TN |
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I'll be that immature guy who loves Super Milk Chan. If you need me, I'll be right over there...
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donhumberto
Posts: 807 |
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+1000 about Gasaraki. I don't know what the author of this article was even thinking about when he name-dropped it as a shitty series. It is by far my favorite mecha show ever and it deserves so much more love than it gets. Truly a gripping, unique and beautiful series for those of us who want something more than big explosions and hot waifus in our mecha shows. |
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