Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Anime Just As Good As I Remembered
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2996 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I guess it depends on how one would define "original run", but the '99 Hunter x Hunter anime did actually air on TV in the US in the late 00s via FUNimation Channel, back when it was a linear cable channel that certain providers offered. I happened to have it during that time, and while I had already watched the fansubs years before it aired on FC I did always make sure to watch HxH's dub on there whenever it did come on. It was via FC that I also saw the early episodes of stuff like Galaxy Railways, Tsubasa; Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHolic, & Kodocha, but Hunter x Hunter was the one that I definitely saw the most of there, since the entire 62-episode run was aired there. |
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mdo7
 Posts: 8222 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Well with Gen Z embracing nostalgia which extend to technology and fad from 2000's even though they were either too young or were not born in that time period. And that include older technologies, and video game. I was hoping when Gen Z would embrace older anime. I mean I'm a millennial (born in 1987), and I've already been watching old school anime that were made before I was born, and I dig them. I'm glad to see older anime are finding it's way into the younger generation.
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tintor2
 Posts: 2691 |
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If there is an anime I rewatched a lot is Darker than Black. The animation aged really well. The plot is mysterious but the more I rewatched the more I understood it. Hei/Li's characterization was fun to see as he can be interpreted as cold and sensitive even in violent scenes. In an early episode he kidnaps a young female contractor and interrogates her to know a hint about his sister. He breaks an arm but feels so guilty that he prepares her dinner and feeds her like a mother would. The fight scenes are really well done since the director is famous for Wolf's Rain and Cowboy Bebop's fights. The Bladerunner references feel more obvious with every episode as some Contractors are pretty much Replicants.
As a kid I also rewatched a lot Scryed but I can't tell if it appealed more to the younger audience considering the way some powers are developed. I really liked when Kurapika became the sole protagonist of Hunter x Hunter like a dark Kenshin but it felt like he had only one fight scene in the entire arc despite having lots of skills. When it comes to mecha I see everybody loves Gurren Lagann but Code Geass and Full Metal Panic appealed to me more |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 5345 |
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I didn't know FYE was still around in any fashion since I haven't been into one since probably 2007. I felt pretty good coming out of there with one of those Geneon starter sets with the first volume of GunxSword and box for $20 considering the retail price for Geneon was usually $30 just for the DVD. The trade off was the box had some damage on the edge, but for a college student, that was fine. The main problem that FYE had at the time was the same as any other retailer, they had a selection of stuff that you wouldn't have seen unless it was on TV or you saw the fansubs, so you were being asked to plunk down $20+ for a few episodes of something unknown.
Black Lagoon is one that always holds up. Heck, that Toonami run was like 7 or 8 years after the Japanese broadcast. |
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2558 Location: Online Terminal |
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Tiger & Bunny ran so MHA could lightly jog. I still argue that it did X-Men better than the X-Men movies.
Scrapped Princess has also stood up to time. Starting as a light novel in 1999 and animated by Studio Bones in 2003 around the same time they were doing FMA, it's an S&S action series that presages a lot of the Narou-kei fantasy tropes and does them better by a) not dwelling on the tropes (although the light novels definitely underline the references a bit more) and b) being genuinely funny and heartfelt in all aspects, not just the nerdy ones. It could've been put on Toonami and lived forever. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 5292 |
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It's been ages since I've watched it so I don't remember many of the details, but I'm glad to see the 1999 HxH adaptation get some love. The 2011 series obviously went further, and I loved the Chimera Ant arc in it, but the earlier adaptation had such a fantastic mood to it that the more modern one just couldn't recapture. The lighting and use of shadows in particular are so good. It also had a few early "filler" episodes that fit in really well and helped flesh out some of the minor characters who played significant roles later. Much love for Black Lagoon and Tiger & Bunny too!
That convention display is awesome, Coop. At this point after 20-odd years of buying discs, I think my bedroom qualifies as a small anime home video museum itself. 
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tintor2
Posts: 2691 |
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Among stuff discussed here I think director Furuhashi stands out. He always takes some liberties with adapting works but sadly none of his works reach an ending. GetBackers, Rave, and Kenshin got no endings while Hunter x Hunter's original ending was scrapped by Togashi himself. Did he also direct Trinity Blood? At least the art direction reminded me of Furuhashi's works
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1759 |
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I've noticed a certain surge of interest in certain aspects of 2000s culture like the so called Frutiger Aero aesthetic, but I don't think that 2000s nostalgia is as strong as the nostalgia for the '80s and '90s with younger generations or even the people who actually lived during that era, which is weird considering that it is said that people get nostalgic for a decade after 20 years have passed, but the thing is that the 2000s was a very complex decade, and I'm saying this as someone who grew up in there. In regards to anime, I think Gen Z, and some younger millenials, tend to appreciate more the aesthetics of '80s and '90s anime, more precisely, back when anime was animated on hand-painted cels. This is just my opinion, but I think hand-painted anime aged much better, at least in the visual department, than the early Digipaint anime from the pre-HD era. Digitally painted anime movies have aged much better, I'm talking about TV series, though there're some that I think aged pretty well visually, like Fullmetal Alchemist '03. |
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Takkun4343
 Posts: 1749 Location: Englewood, Ohio |
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Little fun fact: Black Lagoon made it to the block shortly after Cartoon Network's S&P had finally allowed [as] the right to drop uncensored S-bombs freely. I imagine that decision was what influenced the subsequent decision to air BL, since all they had to bleep out at that point were the F-bombs and the odd C-word. |
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Dr. Wily
Posts: 864 |
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After that anti-nostalgia TWIA column, I actually started rewatching Yu-Gi-Oh, and while I'd never go so far as to claim it one of the Greatest Shows Ever, it does indeed hold up and even with the 4Kids-ing of it all, has what I'd argue is maybe one of the best dubs. Yes, stuff like Joey's accent is silly but it really helps to embrace all the camp that the series revels in.
Tiger & Bunny is a weird one for me because I loved the original series (I got into it because I'm a big American comics fan and a friend pitched it as "what if every hero was basically Booster Gold?") but when the sequel came out I did not have nearly as good a time. And I know it's not because my tastes had changed, because I watched the original before T&B 2's premiere and still liked it. Maybe it's that T&B2 is just a worse show, or maybe it's because Netflix unceremoniously dumping it in batches killed some of the group-watching fun, or maybe it's a little of both. I do agree with Coop though that the digital removal of the ads in stuff like Netflix makes everything just kind of weird to watch. The blank spots on the costumes irk me and when the premise is that it's corporate sponsored heroes and there's no sponsors to be seen, it makes everything weird. And yeah, Death Note's not nearly as smart as I thought it was back when I was a teen, but it still rocks. Light's final breakdown is a masterful scene and it's fun to see him cackle like a supervillain in every language |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5731 |
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I wasn't originally too fond of the Nippon TV adaptation of Hunter X Hunter, mainly due to the die hard fans. But I've warmed to it over time due to its creative direction. I've become a fan of the director ever since the he directed Dororo.
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mdo7
Posts: 8222 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Actually, I do have evidence that seem to back up my observations. Gen Z Reddit: Any other Gen Z obsessed with the 80s/90s, stuff before they were born? Older Millennials Reddit: How do you all feel about Gen Z and Alpha bringing back our '90s and Y2K teen fashions back in? So yeah, the 90's nostalgia is kind of strong amongst I don't know how large portion of Gen Z demographics.
There are people that seem to like like cel animation particularly any Gen Z art and drawing student or aspiring animators/cartoonists. And I wouldn't be surprise if that found it's way into the Gen Z (& probably Gen Alpha) demographic. |
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Mizlude
 Posts: 78 |
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I can understand the phenomena of younger people pining for the days they missed. Imagine being a kid growing up now and hearing tales of how nice things were in the 80s and 90s. If I was a kid and heard how cartoons used to have beautiful hand drawn animation instead of CG or tweening and we had 65 episode series rather than 8 episode seasons. It would sound amazing. I feel anime escaped the deterioration of quality better than most aspects of life have. There's still lots of really good anime coming out but noticeably there's been changes. I think the idea of any modern series getting the One Piece/Naruto/Bleach treatment of running for hundreds of episodes nonstop is over. Most shows that could also easily run for a year or 26 episodes seem to only be done in one-cour installments now. |
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GoGoGoFalco
Posts: 54 |
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Death Note is a timeless classic. I see newer people getting into it all the time. The premise and execution is appealing to most people out there for a variety of reasons - for better or worse. I still see news stories of kids getting into trouble for doing their own 'Death Note' at school from time to time.
The original HxH certainly has it's own look and feel to it. There's no replacing cel animation. Some series have tried to replicate it but unfortunately it's a lost art. FMA Brotherhood is probably the one "modern" version of a series I prefer to the original. In reality it's only 6 years newer than the 03 show so it's probably not right to compare it to other shows. |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2459 |
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I feel like I prefer the original(?)FMA’s handling of the first arc to Brotherhood, and then its Brotherhood all the way. I know folks say Brotherhood is more faithful, and it is, but I still stand by the the idea that the first adaptation is better paced and really gives you a chance to settle into this new world and get to know everyone before everything falls to pieces.Brotherhood, by comparison, moves at a breakneck pace, which is exciting, but assumes a lot of emotional investment from the viewer based on the previous incarnation, imo.
Also, one thing I want to add about why younger generations often want to watch newer stuff instead of turning to older, classic anime with similar themes: pacing. The last time I talked to a teens to twenties fan, they way they talked about having to “slog” through older shows really hammered home how wildly different the 24-ep season really felt compared to the hyper-compressed seasons we get today, where we are LUCKY to get a second season, let alone a two-cour first season. I think there’s just a really strong stigma against older anime from younger anime fans (especially given how much is already readily available legally, since torrenting has fallen out of fashion in recent years), so there’s not much drive to go out and seek stuff that’s not already available for streaming (at least not til the new drive for physical media ownership really hits its stride.) |
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