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.
i really like Cyborg 009, and have one of the 60s movies on DVD. Gatchaman is fantastic, but is a 70s cartoon (in original form and “Battle of the Planets” as well).
i’m more of a 60s animation kind of guy- Marine Boy, Prince Planet, Gigantor, Kimba, 8th Man and even Johnny Cypher. i’m working on a book about Marine Boy right now.
David (who does know more about cartoons than socialism, i’ll readily admit!)
Posted by on 11/27 at 11:33 PMI was a huge Marine Boy fan as a little kid. Also Astroboy, Kimba and Speed Racer. Those Japanese stories were more effective to me than American cartoons. I found the pathos of Tezuka’s shows and the Marine boy world to be haunting in a pleasent way.
Posted by on 11/28 at 12:03 AMi love Hanna-Barbera heroes as much as the 60s Japanese heroes, but they are two different animals. i’ve found out a lot of pretty cool info about Marine Boy, which should surprise long time fans. i’m hoping it might have an effect in getting the show on DVD, as it is a beautiful cartoon that deserves to be remembered.
oh by the way, the OVA of Gatchaman from the 90s really bites.
i have the live action Catseye movie, it’s interesting, but not as fun as the cartoon.
David
Posted by David on 11/28 at 12:10 AMI remember Star Blazers, I loved that show. It was the first anime show I ever saw.
Wasn’t there a character on that show with detachable cyborg arms, or am I mixing it up with something else? I last saw the show around 25 years ago.
Posted by Remulak MoxArgon on 11/28 at 07:00 AMThe first anime I’ve ever watched is BRAVE RAIDEEN, which was a giant robot series from 1975 (and was subtitled in English). Raideen is not only the first “transformer,” but also one of the first giant robots with mythical origins, IIRC, and was featured in Mattel’s Shogun Warriors collection (as “Raydeen").
My own favorites include:
-MAZINGER Z - The King of Super Robots! First giant robot to be piloted by a human being (rather than a remote device), and set the pace for all giant robots to come. MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM (which is the only Gundam series I truly enjoyed) was basically a “realistic” remake of MAZINGER Z.
-DEVILMAN (1972) - The best superhero anime, IMHO, besides GATCHAMAN. This is one of my favorites. Created by Gou Nagai (who also created MAZINGER Z).
-CASSHAN (CASSHERN) (1973) - Another awesome superhero from the creator of GATCHAMAN! Basically like Ishinomori’s own MASKED RIDER, only this hero never transformed, besides having a cool helmet that comes on and off at will. The series finale was much more satisfying than that for GATCHAMAN, IMHO.
-CUTEY HONEY - Another Nagai creation; Japan’s answer to Wonder Woman, only very risque!
-GETTER ROBO - Also by Nagai; The first combining robot! The sequel, GETTER ROBO G (featured in the US in the Force Five package as STARVENGERS, and the title robot was “Dragun” in Shogun Warriors), is even better, IMHO.
-GRENDIZER - Also featured in both Shogun Warriors and Force Five (as GRANDIZER), this series was the second MAZINGER sequel, and was hugely successful in Europe as GOLDORAK.
These guys were from the 70s, though.
But anyway, Hud, on your own list of favorites, you listed some of the best stuff! When we were kids, my older brother and I watched CYBORG 009 (the 1979 version) in English subs every Saturday night on UHF! The 2001 version can eat it.
The GATCHAMAN OVAs had excellent costume designs, but the series itself was weak overall.
Posted by John Cassidy on 11/28 at 08:40 AMI forgot to list VOLTES V as one of the best 70s giant robot shows ever. (One of the writers was Yoshiyuki Tomino, and elements from this series would later make it into his own MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM!)
Posted by John Cassidy on 11/28 at 09:00 AMI used to watch Cyborg 009 and Galaxy Express 999 on a UHF station back around 1980 or 81. It was my intro to actual un-butchered anime. I’d like to get that 009 on DVD (I do have a few fansubbed episodes on tape). The series from that period. There was a new series that had a great first episode but went downhill from there and I lost interest.
Posted by Edshugeo The GodMoor on 11/28 at 06:43 PMI heard it was bad. Never saw it. I love the old show. Especially the theme song. Those old anime shows had such great music.
Posted by on 11/28 at 07:55 PMSame exact deal with me, Edshugeo! In NY (when I lived in the Bronx), they gave CYBORG 009 every Saturday night at 11pm (when I went to Grandma’s apartment every weekend with my big brother Peter, we would go upstairs to another neighbor’s apartment to catch it there!), and they gave GALAXY EXPRESS 999 every Sunday night at 9 or 11 pm, I think. I enjoyed CYBORG 009 more (I’m more of an action person), but I appreciated GALAXY EXPRESS later on.
Posted by John Cassidy on 11/28 at 08:59 PMI’m on Long Island, so I’m sure it was the same station (channel 47?), but I thought it was earlier. I remember my brother and sister wanting to watch Love Boat or something instead. They eventually came to their senses.
Do you remember the cartoon that played after 009 ended? Ikkyusan, about a young monk? I wanted to like it, but…
Posted by Edshugeo The GodMoor on 11/28 at 09:14 PMYou guys were lucky. They didn’t have that kind of stuff around where I lived (San Diego). I hear Hawaii and other cities with large Asian populations usually had these shows on UHF. I wish there was a god anime channel that played all this old stuff like Boomerang does for American shows. If I was rich enough, I’d start such a channel.
Posted by on 11/28 at 09:25 PMYep, it was Channel 47 (Telemundo)! They usually gave Japanese programs late at night. (I don’t know if they do that anymore, at least up there in NY).
I’ve never seen IKKYUSAN (we were pretty much done after 009 was finished). But that’s interesting!
But on Fuji TV on Channel 31 (WNYC) in about 1992 (the last year I was in NYC), they gave the 1985 remake of GE-GE-GE NO KITAROU!
Other than that, RAIDEEN was the only other subtitled anime I watched on UHF (and the first anime I ever saw). Besides that, my older sister remembered watching the 1977 Super Sentai Series JAKQ: BLITZKRIEG SQUAD on the same channel! God, I wish I was able to see that!
Posted by John Cassidy on 11/28 at 09:28 PMThe magic of YouTube answers your prayers, John.
Posted by on 11/28 at 09:33 PMI’ve seen the OP/ED for JAKQ (with some clips here and there), but thanks anyway, Hud! At least you know of the series!
Perhaps the most popular Japanese series in Hawaii is ANDROID KIKAIDER (known in Hawaii by its Japanese title JINZOU NINGEN KIKAIDAA), one of the coolest Japanese superhero shows ever made (aside from ULTRA SEVEN, which is not only my all-time favorite superhero, but also the first Japanese series to be English-dubbed in Hawaii)!
As for anime, I know Hawaii also showed MAZINGER Z, DAI-APOLLON and VOLTES V, among many others.
In 1979, VOLTES V was the most popular show in the Philippines, until it was banned by Ferdinand Marcos (who feared that children would grow up idolizing machines instead of people), but the show was brought back after Marcos’ deposition in 1986 (or 87).
Channel 41/Univision also showed some Spanish-dubbed anime shows! They showed MAZINGER Z (which was pronounced “Mazinjer") long before I saw REMI, Tezuka’s RIBBON KNIGHT (about a girl dressed up as a prince), TREASURE ISLAND (LA ISLA DEL TESORO), and my favorite, MOONLIGHT MASK (called EL CAPITAN CENTELLA there), an anime adaptation of Japan’s first TV superhero (Moonlight Mask is Japan’s answer to Batman).
Posted by John Cassidy on 11/28 at 10:02 PMTomorrow I will post some pictures from my anime fan days.
Posted by on 11/28 at 10:10 PMI used to run home from school to watch Star Blazers. It was the favorite part of a 6-year old’s day.
I just discovered that Star Blazers are available on NetFlix. Might be time for a stroll down memory lane.
Posted by on 11/29 at 07:55 AMWha---?
StarBlazers has been around FOREVER on VHS and now DVD in the US!
The same company that owns StarBlazers now brought over ALL the Yamato movies and released them on DVD, ubermosher!
The StarBlazers sets are still readily available on webstores but I don’t know about the in-print status of the Yamato movies to be honestly truthful. The only store that I ever saw the Yamato movie DVD releases AND StarBlazers sets at was Media Play which went out of business nearly two years ago. Yamato frankly is old enough and not popular enough in the US to warrant a restored, subtitled release. However, there’s always a possibility that the newer version worked on by Matsumoto could turn up in the US. Videos of the newer Yamato series have turned up on Youtube, btw.
Hud, I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you on the editing of Macross into Robotech. The basics of the original show WERE kept in the adaptation but nobody in their right mind would claim that Robotech ever pretended to be a LITERAL translation of the original show at any rate. If anything, I think Robotech got more people into anime than anything else has in the past 30 years. I doubt most people would have ever bothered to look into Macross and all its sequels, let alone the original Southern Cross and Mospeada, if not for Robotech. Barring very few examples, most animated series do NOT have great longevity in Japan, let alone the US. Robotech, at any rate, helped make Macross saleable to the States and kept enough awareness of Mospeada and Southern Cross to allow the Japanese to re-release those shows IN ADDITION to the original Macross which WAS the only huge hit of the original three shows (comprising Robotech) in Japan.
There’s also the factor of cultural biases and syndication realities of the US that you’re overlooking. There was no way any show less than 52 episodes was going to get accepted for syndication in the mid-1980s so there was no choice at all but to edit those 3 shows into Robotech unless Harmony Gold had something longer that could get on the air. I can’t speak for the original Southern Cross since I haven’t it, but I know for a fact that very little footage was edited out of both Mospeada and Macross and that the English dubs are relatively close to the Japanese originals. Thankfully, the shows WERE shown in original episode order without a lot of footage being spliced in-between every other episode. There are far worse edited shows out there that came out of Japan. The original shows were by no means butchered in Robotech unlike what some overzealous fans think.
Sure, a show like Robotech wouldn’t be done today—and it couldn’t be done today because corporations have swallowed up all the free air time and there are no longer slots available for much, if any, independent syndication— but it’s a product of its time and still an important stepping stone in the growth of anime in the US.
Posted by on 11/29 at 11:33 PMGeorge,
Well, I admit I’m biased on this subject because I was already an anime fan when Robotech came out and I introduced Carl Macek to Macross. He then went out and got the rights and made Robotech. I wanted to see the original shows brought over in a purer form. And what they did was make some kind of splice and dice blend of three totally unrelated shows.
But I’m glad people searched for the real stuff after seeing it.
Posted by on 11/30 at 08:41 AMP.S.—I own the domestic releases of Mospeada, Southern Cross, and Macross in addition to the two DVD releases of Robotech.
Each show is uniquely good in its own way. Macross is by far my favorite even though I like the Robotech Main Theme music better than anything on the Macross BGM.
Mospeada is also an excellent show well worth watching for its own sake separate of Robotech. It was by far the least changed of the 3 shows when it was edited into Robotech. Not surprisingly, the designs on Mospeada have weathered the years better than the other two shows and are the general for the mecha designs seen in Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles which was done without Carl Macek.
Frankly, I don’t blame Macek for a lot of things that have happened. Seems like he was under orders from Harmony Gold whom he worked for as a contractor before he started Streamline Pictures (a now defunct company) in the late 1980s and had to work with whatever HG had licensed. He and a number of other people in the domestic anime industry have had their families and lives THREATENED by overzealous fans while at the same time most people underestimate how difficult it is to get anime licensed and on the air in the US.
Heck, I even saw one particularly creepy Robotech fan pie one of the HG officials in the face at a con earlier this year (through the miracles of Internet video—you couldn’t pay me to go back to Anime Expo with how overgrown and crowded that con has gotten over the years). Tommy Yune was lucky to only be hit in the face by a creme pie. Reading the blogs of that disturbed fan online (who was irate that his ideas for Robotech were not followed through in the OVA movie), I’m convinced the situation could have been much worse. Security escorted the pie thrower out of the con and he’s on a life-ban list from AE.
It’s the relative lack of anime on free-air cable that’s killing the growth of anime in the US more than anything else. The Anime and Funimation Channels are extras people have to pay for to add to their cable listings and there are still many places in the US that have only one or none of the two available anime channels.
Posted by on 11/30 at 10:12 AMI don’t blame Carl. I talked to him about all this afterward, so I know the story. I suspect he tried to do what he could with his limited power and budget.
But I was disappointed with how things turned out. You have to remember that I was already familiar with the source material so I know how it “should have sounded”, whereas you come at it from a different angle.
It’s really a moot point since what happened happened. As you say, it helped get things rolling here. The problem now is the media monopolies.
Posted by on 11/30 at 10:44 AM
I saw the video where the creepy ROBOTECH fan throws a pie in the face at Tommy Yune! Not surprisingly, Yune didn’t take it too seriously. He thought it was funny (even though it got the fan into trouble)!
I’m much more of a MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM fan than I am of MACROSS, but I must say that MACROSS has excellent mecha! I was bored by ROBOTECH when it came out, originally (I also saw TECHNOVOYAGER/THUNDERBIRDS 2086 the same time), but I somewhat appreciated it as time went by, and commend Carl Macek for trying to stay true to the original shows. Yeah, the 80s was a pretty harsh time for cartoons.
Amritas told me years ago that MACROSS was originally going to be a comedy!
Posted by John Cassidy on 11/30 at 02:41 PMi remember saber rider and the star sheriffs, its one of the best 80s anime which i love too.
Posted by naruto wallpapers on 03/10 at 07:02 PMSucks for me cuz I havn’t seen any of these. I wasn’t even born in the 80’s lol. I wish i was though. These seem cool nonetheless. Maybe i’ll go check some out.
Posted by watch free anime on 03/19 at 03:27 PMI really love naruto..
Posted by Satellite TV Free on 03/26 at 11:58 PMCool. I just got into anime, any suggestions?
Posted by Anime on 05/29 at 06:44 PM
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