An Anime Autobiography
Now that I think about it, I've been watching anime my whole life. Here is my life story told through encounters with Japanese cartoons. It should provide some context for my opinions, if that sort of thing is important to you.
Battle of the Planets/G-Force/Gatchaman
Battle of the Planets was the weirdest cartoon on Saturday morning when I was a kid, and my first exposure to anime. At the time, I didn't like it much. It was creepy. The characters had crazy hair. The token kid of the group made nonsensical bleeping noises. The villains were things like a robot woman driving a sports car with a rose in her teeth, which exploded when she threw it. Still, when G-Force put on their bird outfits and busted into alien compounds, it was cool. I look back on this show fondly. The one part I absolutely hated was the part tacked on to appease American audiences-- the stupid-ass R2D2-ripoff robot who sat in his underwater station and supposedly sent out the call for G-Force when Spectra started causing trouble. I mean, his chamber is about 8 feet wide, and he has to sprout wings and fly from one side to the other??!! Even a 7 year old child can see how stupid that is!! And he's got a robot dog? Gimme a break!!!
Sometime around 1980, Showtime got ahold of some anime. They had five movies, which they (or someone) grouped under the title Force Five. Each movie was actually a set of episodes from a TV series that had been edited together into a 144 minute feature. Some ended more conclusively than others. All but one were of the giant robot variety.
Grandizer was the first, and for me I suppose it remains the definitive giant robot movie. It was odd to hear the pilot call out the names of his weapons as he fired them, but didn't bother me too much.
Starvengers came next. I loved how the three spaceships could combine in three different configurations to form three different giant robots. Too bad they almost always used Star Dragon. Star Arrow was my favorite. Coincidentally, I already owned the Shogun Warrior toys of the three robots when this movie came to Showtime.
Spaceketeers did not feature any giant robots, but three warriors escorting a princess on a mission to save the universe. The American translation likened them to The Three Musketeers. After a small foray into Chinese literature in college, I realized that it's actually the story of the Monkey King and the Journey to the West, retold as a space opera.
Danguard Ace was the least satisfying of the five. Most of the film focused on the young pilot struggling to master the giant robot. It ended just about the time the real action starts, with the characters flying off into peril. At the time, I didn't know it was episodes of a series that had been strung together, and was somewhat mystified by the ending.
Gaiking was the last Force Five film, and the weirdest in a lot of ways. There was a long section in the middle dealing with some angelic kid who rides a Pegasus and dies tragically. I could have done without that, but the giant robot parts were cool.
I was surprised not to see more of Robotech at the Expo. It always seemed like a seminal show to me, but that probably has more to do with my own experience than the actual world of anime. The story of Robotech progressed through three different series: Macross, Robotech Masters, and New Generation. I completely missed the first series. The second series showed up after I had stopped watching Saturday morning cartoons. It was on Sunday mornings, or maybe weekdays, I can't remember. That series ran to its end and was followed by the third series, which I enjoyed even more. The evil Invid had a unique design. The rag-tag band of heroes with their powered-armor motorcycles were cool. The cross-dressing singer put me off at that age, but I got over it.
Unlike American cartoons, or pretty much any American TV series, Robotech was a serialized epic. Events built, characters progressed, and things changed from one episode to the next. This seems to be a fairly common element in anime. I would love to sit down and watch every episode of all three Robotech series in proper sequence, but I just don't have the time.
Voltron was an afternoon giant robot cartoon in the mid-80s. Actually, there were two Voltrons. There was the one with the lion robots that combined into Voltron, and the other one. The good one. The one with a dozen or so little spaceships that combined into Voltron. For some reason, the good one was taken off the air and we were left with the lions in their cheesy castle, with the stupid cutesy mice and the geeky kid and the irritating princess. Anyway the show's formula quickly became apparent; futz around some new menace for most of the show, then in the last 7 minutes, form Voltron and cut the ro-beast in half. Ho-hum.
In junior high came a turning point. My friend Albert gave me a bootleg videotape from some early anime distribution group called CFO, with Lensman, Nausicaa, and some episodes of Robotech: Macross. Lensman and Nausicaa were clearly a cut above all the cartoons I had been fed thus far through the filters of American TV production. The animation was cleaner, the designs were better, and the stories were starker. They were also in the original Japanese, with no subtitles. On some level this only increased their appeal. In junior high my escapist impulse was naturally at its peak, and here were two science fiction films not only dealing with alien worlds, but in a very alien style and an alien language.
I watched them over and over for years, especially Lensman. Nausicaa, being a more complicated story, was harder to appreciate without the dialog. Still, it was powerful and haunting. Eventually I got to see it in English, and now I own all the manga (in English). Nausicaa is, of course, by the great Hayao Miyazaki, who went on to create Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. Lensman is a straightforward story of fighting off an alien invasion. After repeated viewings it was easy to decipher. In college I had a chance to see it in English, but I enjoyed it far less. It's so much cornier when everything is spelled out! I still watch the Japanese tape every once in awhile.
The theatrical release of Akira, sometime around 1990, was hailed as a breakthrough for anime. I suppose it was, but I wasn't terribly impressed by the movie. It's about a young motorcycle gang in a future Tokyo, and involves psychic-powered mutants. The animation was on par with my bootleg CFO video. I guess if the only anime you'd seen was Voltron, Akira would have blown you away.
It was my first chance to see anime on the big screen, which was nice. Akira was also the first manga that was widely available in the US, where it was published by Marvel. Again, it wasn't the greatest story, but I read it for years. There was such a strong sense of a larger, continuous story, as opposed to stand-alone episodes, that I had to keep buying every issue just to see where it went. I finally stopped after the movie showed how it all turned out.
Fist of the North Star, Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D
I lump these together to represent the period in college when I lived with Dave, and we rented every anime video we could find. I don't remember many of them. The powered-armor/giant robot videos we saw really blended into one another. Fist of the North Star was silly, but fun if you can get past the sillyness. Ninja Scroll had lots of cool monsters. Vampire Hunter D was our first gothic anime. We had a bootleg copy and watched it over and over. Incidentally it was around this time I became aware of the term "anime."
This didn't get nearly the press that Akira got, but it should have. This film really delves into issues of identity that are raised by the approach of artificial intelligence and cybernetic technology. Released in the mid-90s, it did more for the cyberpunk genre than any film since Blade Runner, and remains unmatched except for maybe the first Matrix. The sequel is coming soon. Don't miss it. There is also a new Ghost in the Shell TV series, which more closely follows the original manga.
Battle Angel Alita and Cowboy Bebop
Around the time Erik got into cel collecting, he started showing me videos when I went to Denver or when he came to Oregon. Battle Angel Alita and Cowboy Bebop are two of my favorites that he's shown me. Battle Angel is about an android living in a place called the Scrapyard, beneath a mysterious floating city. The manga tell the epic tale of Alita discovering her origins and the secrets of her world. Cowboy Bebop was the first anime I saw that departed from the typical sci-fi style, using blues-type music and elements of film noir. On top of that, the characters-- a small team of bounty hunters-- are loads of fun.
A major breakthrough. With a translation written by Neil Gaiman and big-name English-speaking voice-actors, this film reached a relatively wide American audience. And it showcased the talents of Hayao Miyazaki, who is as much poet and painter as animator. Miyazaki is known for drawing portions of the animation himself as well as directing. Princess Mononoke has beauty and horror, violence and redemption, gods and demons, fantasy and dire warnings. This film makes it clear why Miyazaki is one of anime's most renowned artists.
This was Hayao Miyazaki's second film to get a major US release. No big American names in the cast this time, no fantasy auteur writing the translation, but it had a distribution deal with Disney going for it. The folks at Disney and Pixar seem to want to ride on Miyazaki's coattails and take some credit for this film's existence, but we know better. Spirited Away is about a young girl who finds herself in the spirit world, and must rescue her parents who have been turned into pigs. It's less intense than Princess Mononoke, but still a beautiful film, with a wealth of strange creatures yet deeply human characters.
Trigun, ROD, Wolf's Rain, Last Exile
Now we come to the videos I saw for the first time at the expo. Or at least the few that really stuck with me.
The action-comedy Trigun seems to be one of the most popular anime. The main character is Vash the Stampede, widely feared as the most dangerous man in the world. Vash may be dangerous, but he's also a complete goofball.
ROD (stands for Read or Die) also blends action and comedy. We saw the tail end of the movie, and a few episodes of the TV series. Both revolve around characters with the mystical ability to make sheets of paper fly through the air and obey their commands. The TV series is about a detective agency made up of three female Paper Masters, and an author they protect from terrorists. The characters are all screwed up in their own ways, and their interactions are highly entertaining.
Wolf's Rain is about werewolves. I loved watching this show. I've been dying for an interesting treatment of werewolves ever since Anne Rice redefined vampires. While in human form, the characters still act like a pack of wolves. It would take a long time to explain why, so it's best if you just go watch it.
Last Exile I'd putright up there with Miyazaki's work. This one has it all; a strange, unique world. Mechanized crafts like nothing you've ever seen. And of course, compelling characters. We came into this series on episode 3, and I was totally hooked right away. I wanted to know these people's life stories. I may have to actually go and buy this series.
