In this series of my blog, I will be talking about a particularly stylized form of animation from Japan that is anime (Japanese cartoons, if you will)... a form of animation which would go on to influence animation in the west and teach us folks in the older generation that animation wasn't just for kids. In this part of my retrospective, I will be talking about my earliest exposures to anime, and how they would help me get accustomed to watching them in their purest form growing up.
You could say my memories regarding actual anime were rather vague being born in 1983. There were a number of great cartoons that would be airing in the next two years after my birth - Inspector Gadget, Heathcliff, G.I. Joe, Transformers, He-Man, etc. - but none of them had as big an impact on my desire to watch and commit to a Saturday morning cartoon more than Thundercats did. The high quality of animation, use of vibrant colors, a unique atmosphere utilizing both technology and magic, and its distinctive stylized appeal made it a very engaging show to watch, despite the story going a bit on the wayside with logic at times.
So why did I bring up Thundercats, even though it was a US cartoon? It technically is, but the animation production company is from Japan, which explains why it was so different from other cartoons at the time (most using endless amounts of stock footage to compensate for a 65-episode run at little cost, because hand-drawn cel animation was a bitch). Thundercats was originally produced in 1983, two years before actually airing on television in the fall of 1985 due to concerns with children's programming at the time. The animation production company in Japan behind this crossover project with Rankin-Bass Studios was the former PAC (Pacific Animation Corporation), which would go on to form the reputable company known as Studio Ghibli, which was responsible for many of Hayao Miyazaki's famous movies (we'll get to him later).
Anywho, Thundercats became the gold standard I personally set for my Saturday morning fix. No matter what cartoon I missed, I made sure not to miss this one. And this would continue to be my main show until Silverhawks (another show from the same staff) came along one year later. There was also another show that also caught my eye called Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers, which also had a similar development story to Thundercats, except its animation company was another reputable one called TMS (Tokyo Movie Shinsha), which was particularly well-known for the popular high-quality TV anime of the 70s called "Rose of Versailles" as well as crossover production for "Tiny Toon Adventures" and the groundbreaking "Batman: The Animated Series".
It was around this time that my dad started bringing home random VHS tapes to keep me occupied and entertained. He got some help from my uncle on my dad's side, who has already seen his fair share of anime at the time while in the military stationed in Japan. Among the VHS tapes he got, three of them would be the first anime I would truly be exposed to-- Space Warrior Baldios, Galaxy Express 999, and Dagger of Kamui. While they weren't necessarily completely faithful to the original source material (given the need to tone down or cut scenes with certain grown-up themes for young audiences), the stories were interesting, though I wouldn't really appreciate the story until later, as I was too interested in the action.
Space Warrior Baldios was set in the distant future on a planet called S-1, which has been completely polluted by radioactivity. The world's scientists had just found a way to restore it through a painstaking experiment, but their efforts were cut short by the impatient world military led by Fuhrer Gattler. Having already assassinated the world's leader, he set out to destroy the lab and the scientists and carry the billions of civilians aboard a mothership to search for another planet. The son of one of the world's scientists, Marin Reagan, realized himself the foul play behind Gattler's scheme and quickly became enemies with the military after killing the then-commander Milan, who was the brother of the new commander of the world's military, Aphrodia. Vowing vengeance, she chased Marin to the ends of the galaxy, only to be sent to a time warp that sent them centuries into the past on planet Earth. With Marin's knowledge of subspace technology, the elite Blue Fixer military would be able to fend off against Gattler's large forces with the giant robot Baldios.
Galaxy Express 999 - as will be attested by any true anime fan of old - is a shining example of a classic anime that appeals to all ages while at the same time not insulting the viewer's intelligence, although its earliest English dub doesn't capture the magic the future Ocean dub would 17 years later. Following the TV series in 1978, the movie would be featured as a retcon of sorts that retells the story of an orphaned boy named Tetsuro Hoshino and his quest to obtain a mechanical body so that he would not only live forever, but to seek revenge on the man - or robot - who killed his mother. But in order to do so, he had to somehow get on a train. And not just any train... a train that actually sails the cosmos, allowing intergalactic travel to be possible among mortal men. In a chance encounter with the mysterious chaste woman known as Maetel, Tetsuro manages to gain access to the Three Nine and sets off on his journey.
Dagger of Kamui - the third of the anime I watched - was the first anime I watched that had a secondary impact on my life for being the first to bring awareness to what a ninja actually is. Dubbed "Revenge of the Ninja Warrior" by an Australian video distribution company called Celebrity (which is now defunct), this epic tells the story of a young boy named Jiro, who goes through not one, but two tragic hardships at the beginning of the movie. The first of these starts off when both his mother and older sister are killed in the dead of night by a ninja, and the blame is pinned on Jiro, who unbeknownst to him, picked up the dagger that pierced her mother's heart at the wrong time. Escaping from judgment by the village for matricide and sororicide, Jiro finds temporary sanctuary with a Shinto monk named Tenkai, who promised Jiro that he would find the killer of his family sooner than he thought. Shortly after their meeting, they caught the "culprit", and an enraged Jiro killed him without hesitation. Realizing he had nowhere else to go, Tenkai took him in to train as a ninja, and as he grew up, planted a curiosity in his head about his unknown father in order to send Jiro on a quest to discover a treasure for his own personal gain.
So there you have it, my earliest exposures to real anime. In Part 2, I will discuss other anime I watched along the way that, while entertaining in their own right, were ones I regrettably put under the radar until later.
No comments:
Post a Comment