Tuesday, November 27, 2007
19 Great 80s Anime Shows
I confess that I was once a hardcore anime fan, long before most people in the US even knew what that was. In fact, I did one of the first convention anime rooms at BayCon ‘83 in San Jose. At lot of people at that con didn’t know what to make of it, but it was popular. Even though most of the videos were in Japanese. Many without subtitles, even. The next year I had Toren Smith helping me and we did a kick ass program book. The following year, Toren took it over and I wrote parts of the guide.
I even held anime fan club (CFO) meetings in my house for awhile. Back then anime fans often had to watch the films in Japanese without subtitles. Something most fans today would probably find too daunting. But it forced us to learn some Japanese. I even took two courses with Toren at the local junior college.
What appealed to me about anime was it didn’t talk down to the audience. It respected their intelligence. And it generally wasn’t juvenile unless the show was meant to be juvenile.
So anyway, here’s a list of some of my favorite anime TV shows. I’ll do a list of movies later.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Probably the godfather of all giant robot series. It spawned many sequels. It was a very intelligent, hard science action series about an interplanetary war in the solar system when humans were evolving into “new types”. The nominal villain Char was the most popular character.
Lupin III I talked about this series in a previous post. I mainly love the idea of the series and the characters. It wasn’t always good, but they Miyazaki episodes and a few others are golden.
Future Boy Conan Hayao Miyazaki did three TV series. This is the second one. A fantastic serialized story which was probably ripped off by Waterworld. In the future the world is covered with water except for islands here and there. A tyrannical civilization has kidnapped a young princess and a brave boy named Conan is trying to save her. It’s similar to Miyazaki’s movie Laputa (aka Castle in the Sky).
Tomorrow’s Joe This is based on a popular 70s manga about a professional boxer from the slums who fights his way to the world welterweight championship. Along the way he has a series of personal trials. It’s kind of a soap opera and was probably inspired by Rocky, but may have preceded it. It goes a lot farther than Rocky and is a lot darker at times. It’s very powerful stuff.
Space Cruiser Yamato One of the most successful anime series ever. An edited version was shown in the states as Starblazers. It’s a great space opera about and interstellar war where the Earth was losing until they turn the remains of the WWII Japanese ship Yamato into a space cruiser. There were sequels and many movies.
Space Adventure Cobra I talked about this show in a previous post. Here’s a scene where Cobra battles his nemesis, Crystal Boy, who’s immune to the Psycho-Gun.
Galaxy Express 999: This fanciful oddball series holds a special place in my heart. It’s the story of a boy looking for his parents in a distant future where people travel between the planets on space trains. He is accompanied by a mysterious woman named Matel who may or may not be his mother. The stories are very strange and fantastic. I fell in love with it and the characters. The music is superb. Here’s a montage of scenes from the first movie. Notice the main character, Tetsuro, is a kid wielding a gun. He is seeking revenge for the cyborg who murdered his parents. The idea of a kid going around blasting people is way to radical for the states. That’s one of the reasons I love this series. The Japanese are more concerned with what works and makes sense for the world of the story, and less concerned with satisfying unimaginative censors. The creator of Galaxy Express (and Harlock and Yamato) Leiji Matsumoto grew up in war torn Japan. It left a big impression on him. So the idea of an orphan fending for himself in the ruins is coming from the heart. That’s what makes this story so special.
Cyborg 009: I love the theme to this series which is based on a 1960 comics series by Shotaro Ishinomori, a former apprentice of Osamu Tezuka, the Walt Disney/Jack Kirby of Japan. Ishimori’s art style is very cartoony like Tezukas, and some people might mistake some of his character designs as being racist. But this multi-national cast of characters are anything but cool. It was an inspiration for my first series Espers.
The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: This show was incredibly hot when it came out. The earth is invaded by giant humanoid aliens who turn out to be the race that seeded our DNA in ancient times, and have come back. It’s about a love affair between a pilot and a singer who may hold the key to winning the war. It was brought over here and badly edited with some other shows under the name Robotech.
Space Runaway Ideon: I absolutely love the theme song to this show. And the story is very compelling. In a distant future, on a distant planet, a group of scientists are unearthing artifacts from an ancient alien culture when they are attacked by the army of another planet. They take refuge in some strange vehicles they unearthed only to find they still work. The vehicles come together to worm a giant robot and they fend off the attack. Now the enemy are determined to find the secret of this robot. The war escalates. And what they find is that the alien culture had evolved because of the technology they possessed. Using the robot changes the scientists and their enemies. It’s a very cool story.
Aura Battler Dunbine is by the same creator of Ideon, Yoshiyuki Tomino. He was also a key writer on Mobile Suit Gundam. He was one of the hottest writers in anime in the 80s. This series is set in a fantasy dimension just outside our own. It’s where souls transition from our world when we die. And there’s a war there, with Giant Robots and magic. It was an interesting mashup of ideas.
Urusei Yatsura This is a hugely popular series that ran for many years and many movies by the great Rumiko Takahashi who also created Ranma 1/2 and Maison Ikoku. It’s a hilarious story with zillions of characters. Shows like the Simpsons owe it a huge debt of gratitude for paving the way. It’s about a horny, stupid teenager who manages to get an alien princess to fall in love with him. Hilarity ensues when he starts looking at other women. This is my favorite opening credit theme. There were five in all.
Catseye A preposterous, but engaging show about three sisters who steal famous art pieces that used to belong to their father. One of them dates the cop who is trying to catch them. Loved the opening credits.
Famous Holmes Another Miyazki classic. Sherlock Holmes characters as dogs. It’s a steam punk adventure for children. Very well done and enjoyable.
Giant Gorg A kind of Japanese Johnny Quest about a boy and his Giant Robot on an island that has risen from the sea and contains an awaking advanced civilization determined to conquer the world. It’s designed and conceived by another great cartoonist, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko (Venus Wars). This series is extremely well written and paced.
Gold Lightan This was a fun series about a kid with a lighter than turned into a giant robot. I have the toy somewhere. It’s kind of a Transformers type story.
Armored Trooper VOTOMS The theme to this show is one of my favorites. I also like the story which is very unusual. It’s set on a polluted war torn world where a soldier battles for the love of an enemy soldier.
Captain Harlock From the same creator of Galaxy Express. This is actually a spin off series about a space pirate who fights injustice. Harlock is a very sucessful character who got two TV series and at least one movie (he also appear in both Galaxy Express films).
Science Ninja Team Gatchaman It was shown in the states in a butchered form as Battle of the Planets. But this superhero series was too violent to be shown in its original form on 80s American TV. A group of five “science ninjas” battle an evil terrorist organization that employs an endless army of bad guys and robots that wreak havoc on the earth. There were three series in all and some OAVs in the 90s which I haven’t seen. It’s considered a classic by fans both in Japan and the US.
I barely scratched the surface of 80s anime shows. But these are some of my favorites.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Happy ThanksgivingI’m about to set down to a T-Day spread my mom made with my sisters. Turkey, Ham, Baby Back Ribs and a host of side dishes that look awesome. Then there’s Kaluha pie waiting afterward. Hope you guys have a great holiday. What did you all eat?
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Listen UpI try to be accommodating, but the amount of haters coming over here today and leaving their stink bombs is getting to be tedious. They all seem to be pissed off that I besmirched their beloved global warming agenda (and leftist movies).
If people disagree with me, I have no problem with that. But I have no time for insults from trolls. So, any more uncivil messages will get deleted. No warning.
I consider trolling to be spam. And I treat it as such.
Personally, I find it rather sad that some people feel they have to go to a complete stranger’s place and insult them, just because they don’t share their views.
UPDATE: Al Gore’s Inverted Charts
Ouch DuJour
This time it’s on me.
There have been some trolls coming around here all of a sudden insulting my writing based on some typos they’ve found (and some admittedly sloppy writing here and there). Thanks to a reader I came across this post from a German based blog named “Sadly, No”, which claims to be humorous. But it spends a lot of time demeaning conservatives because of their views. Such as mocking the fact that Charles Krauthammer is in a wheel chair, as if that’s a reflection of the value of his politics. Ooh, cripple humor!
They went to town on me. And they found some good ammo. I have been sloppy lately. I should do a better job of proofing my site, but I am so busy sometimes I often post things without rereading them. Obviously, that’s a mistake. And I should never do that.
So, even though that site was very insulting and sent a bunch of trolls my way (what does that say about their audience?), I’m glad they showed me the error of my ways.
Which brings me to a point I’ve been wanting to make about lefties. They really have this fixation with demeaning people they disagree with to a ridiculous extent. They are especially fond of cherry picking pull quotes from speeches and holding them up as an example of how stupid so and so is.
In the 80s their targets were Ronald Reagan and Dan Quayle. And they’ve had a field day with Bush these days. But the fact is, when someone does a lot of public speaking, they make mistakes. Bill Clinton and Al Gore have made plenty of stupid quotes, also. It’s only human to trip on your words every once and awhile. But somehow, the lefties think this is proof that the conservatives are stupider than they are. Or, at least, they want to believe it.
Hence, this is what this attack was really about. They start off by comparing me to a pile of dirt and go from there. It’s all about demeaning my views, by mocking my mistakes. They found some good examples of bad writing on my blog. I can’t deny it. But, in a typical lefty fashion, they don’t argue with the logic. They just have to hold it in contempt because that’s all they’re good for. High handedness and conceit.
No wonder they keep losing elections.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
1001 ListsList mania dominates the blogs these days. They seem to be popular. Here’s 1001 lists to keep you occupied.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Happy Halloween
It’s one of my favorite holidays. I actually named one of my comics companies Halloween Comics. The bowl of candy is ready to go if any kids come by tonight. I need to carve a pumpkin before it gets dark.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
What a ViewTuesday, October 16, 2007
10 Great TED talksTED is a conference where a lot of great minds get together and discuss new ideas on how to change the world. Here’s a list of 10 great TED talks by different speakers.
I’ve already linked to the Hans Rosling speech which is in here, which shows how poverty is declining around the world. There are others here that show how violence is also declining. The world is getting a lot better even though there are many things we would like to change. These speeches are a good antidote for the pessimism and fatalism we get force fed every day by the press and nutty websites.
There is a lot of room for improvement, but all in all, human beings are trying and they are succeeding in many areas.
Zonked
Sorry I haven’t posted much today besides comments. That medicine they gave me at the hospital lasted all day. All I wanted to do was kick back, so I went home and watched two movies which just happen to be on this list. I agree with their opinions. The movies were The Number 23 and A Perfect Stranger.
Anyway, here are a bunch of nice wallpapers. Only one space image, though.
BTW: I would add Fight Club to the list. Great movie until they get to the lame twist. Sorry, but I didn’t buy it.
UPDATE: More wallpapers here. Click the links at the bottom for even more images.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Site RedesignI am in the process of redesigning my website and making all the pages a consistent design, including the blog. You can see the new design on the home page. I’ll get around to the others sometime this week.
